MORE THAN JUST A PRETTY FACE:

THE WOMEN OF THE SOE AND THE OSS DURING WORLD WAR II

Kelly Keith

A Thesis

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green

State University in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

MAY 2013

Committee:

Dr. Beth Griech-Polelle, Advisor

Dr. Michael Brooks

 © 2013

Kelly Keith

All Rights Reserved

 iii

ABSTRACT

Beth Greich-Polelle, Advisor

This work’s focus is on the women who served as secret agents during World War

II for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Great Britain and the Office of Strategic

Services (OSS) in the United States. The argument presented herein states that the

existing historiography featuring female agents oversexualizesand deprives the women of

their agency by suggesting that the women would have been less successful in their

missions if they were less attractive. The histories discussed in this work focused on the

physical appearances and sexuality of their subjects, which resulted in volumes of

information that detracted from the successes of the women throughout the war. This

Thesis also examines the effect that society had on constructing the ideas of femininity

and masculinity that encouraged the authors to depict the women and their

accomplishments as abnormal for the time or as resulting from the use of their sexuality.

The Introduction informs the reader about the lives of women in Great Britain and the

United States prior to WWII, their entry into the workforce, the creation of the SOE and

the OSS, each agency’s selection process for potential agents, the training they received,

and the historiographical issues that are found throughout the literature. By comparing

the two nations and their treatment of women in the workforce, and more specifically in

the secret spy organizations, this researcher found distinct differences in the ways women

were discriminated against within the agencies based on how the societies in each nation

viewed women in the workforce.

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Chapters Two and Three serve to retell the histories of nine female agents who

worked for the SOE and the OSS during the war. Both chapters exclude reference to the

beauty and sexuality of the women in order to focus on the missions and the

accomplishments of the agents presented in other histories. Chapter Four details the

policy changes that have occurred since World War I, policies adoptedbefore and during

WWII, and the subsequent laws that have passed regarding women in the military. This

chapter also argues that it was due to the female agents of the SOE and OSS that the

governments in both nations allowed women more freedoms and the option to join the

armed forces with full military status after WWII.

The final chapter develops the argument that the women in the existing

historiography are over sexualized and their agency is diminished because the authors, as

well as society in the 1940s, was socially constructed to view certain occupations as

masculine or feminine. Thus, the authors wrote their histories within a gendered

paradigm that has not been altered much since the first monograph about the women

agents was published over thirty years ago. I suggest that, at least on some level, the

authors had a responsibility to their audiences to give accurate and non-gendered histories

of the female agents. It is my intention to offer another, less gender specific, approach to

the historiography, one that focused on the accomplishments of the agents and not on

their beauty or sexual partners. My intention is to draw attention to the flawed and biased

approach taken by many of the authors, whether it was intentional or subconscious on

their part.
 v

Dedicated to Adam, Zoë and Ethan - without your support and understanding I would
accomplish nothing.
 vi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I must first thank my committee for their guidance, encouragement and patience

through this process. Dr. Beth Greich-Polelle, your optimism and reassurances made the

entire process bearable. Dr. Michael Brooks, thank you for the best advice I could have

received. You were right, “the best Thesis is a done Thesis!”

I would also like to thank Dr. Tiffany Trimmer for all of her help my first two

semesters at Bowling Green State University. The advice you offered has stuck with me

and aided this process every inch of the way.

Dr. Susan Shelangoskie, I appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to offer

feedback on my final chapter. Your comments were insightful and made for a much

stronger conclusion.

I must also thank (or blame) Katie LaPlant for suggesting I look into “these

women that jumped from planes during WWII.” You pointed out something interesting

and helped me to turn it into a passion.

A special thanks to Anne Marsh at the Institute on WWII and the Human

Experience at Florida State University for helping me find primary sources on the women

of the OSS and for opening my eyes to the wonders of archival preservation.

Finally, to my family, words will never be enough but thank you, thank you,

thank you.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 1

HISTORY OF THE SOE .................................................................................................... 4

RECRUITING AND TRAINING SOE AGENTS

HISTORY OF THE OSS ..................................................................................................... 7

RECRUITING AND TRAINIG OSS AGENTS

HISTORIGRAPHICAL ISSUES ............................................................................................ 10

METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................ 19
CHAPTER II. THE SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE ............................................ 24

THE WOMEN AGENTS OF THE SOE .......................................................................... 28

CHAPTER III. THE OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES .............................................. 49

THE WOMEN AGENTS OF THE OSS .................................................................. 52

CHAPTER IV. WOMEN, WORKFORCE, AND WAR ...................................................... 66

SOCIETY AND WOMEN – HOW WOMEN WERE TREATED IN THE

WORKFORCE ...................... 67

WOMEN ENTER THE ARMED FORCES...................................................................... 72

DISCRIMINATION IN THE MILITARY........................................................................ 75

THE CREATION OF THE SOE AND OSS .................................................................. 76

POLICIES RELATED TO WOMEN IN THE MILITARY ............................................. 81

CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................... 85

BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................. 98
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“When women take up a cause you can assume it has been won” – Italian Proverb

A relatively limited number of sources exist about the women who served in the armed

forces during WWII. Histories of the women who worked as special agents in the Office of

Strategic Services (OSS) or the Special Operations Executive (SOE) are even more difficult to

find. Only within the last several decades has the study of women in the military caught the

attention of scholars in a significant way. The most common themes employed by historians—

particularly an overemphasis on the beauty, sexuality, romantic relationships, and marriages of

the female agents—needs to be addressed due to the fact that the authors’ gendered emphasis on

the physical attractiveness of the agents as part of their analysis detracts from the success the

women had throughout the war in both agencies. This confined representation of female spies

distracted scholars from accurately assessing their accomplishments as secret agents during

WWII.

While the social and political expectations placed on women in the 1940s cannot be

ignored, the women employed by the OSS and the SOE enjoyed many freedoms previously held

solely by men. As a result, the existing literature should offer readers a much more gender-

neutral history of their accomplishments. This is not the case. These women have been, whether

intentional or not, written into history with a great focus on their beauty and sexuality.

Prior to WWII, in both the United States and Great Britain, generally, women stayed

home taking care of their families and homes. Only young and unmarried women were deemed

acceptable in the work place. It was also expected that once they married they would return to

their homes and live traditional lives caring for their families. Census records show that prior to
 2

WWII, in 1940, women in the US made up 24.3% of the work force. 1 Great Britain’s records

show that prior to their entrance in 1931, only 34.2 % of women worked outside of the home. 2

In 1941 and 1942, Great Britain and the US respectively, began recruiting more women into the

workforce in order to fill vacancies left by men who had been called up to fight in the war.

At the start of WWII, in both countries, the occupations deemed acceptable for women

grew rapidly. As the war required more and more men to leave their civilian jobs and enter the

armed forces, essential occupations in munitions plants and automotive factories were left with

vacancies that needed to be filled, and quickly. It was at this point that American manufacturers

began to recruit women to fill these positions. 3 Propaganda posters began to appear in a wide

variety of locations with messages aimed at women suggesting they do their patriotic part for the

war effort and “Work! So they can Fight!” 4 The British required women from 18-60 years of

age to work in any capacity the government saw as essential to the war effort beginning in 1941. 5

The one similarity these two countries had was that neither government would allow women to

be employed in positions that required the use of weapons, thus excluding them from

participating in front line combat for their countries.

1
United States Department of Labor, M. E Pidgeon, Changes in Women’s Employment During the War US
Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau, Special Bulletin N.. 20 of the Women’s Bureau (US Government Printing
Office, June 1944), 2, http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/docs/publications/women/sb020_dolwb_194406.pdf., accessed
April 25, 2012.
2
James J. Heckman and Mark R. Killingsworth, “Female Labor Supply: A Survey,” in Handbook of Labor
Economics, ed. O. Ashenfelter and R. Layard, vol. 1 (Elsevier Science Publishers BV, 1986), 105,
http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/course/Heckman%20and%20Killingsworth_Handbook.pdf., accessed April 25, 2012.
3
Emily Yellin, Our Mothers’ War: American Women at Home and at the Front During World War II, Reprint (Free
Press, 2005), 67–71.
4
Office for Emergency Management. War Production Board, I’ll Need the Boys Out There. You Will Have to Carry
on. Work! So They Can Fight!, Ca. 1942 - Ca. 1943, Poster, 11/03/1945 1942, Records of the War Production
Board, 1918 - 1947, Record Group 179, National Archives at College Park, MD,
http://research.archives.gov/description/535418.
5
Harris, Carol. "Women on the Home Front in World War Two,” BBC - History - British History in Depth, accessed
on March 16, 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwone/women_employment_01.shtml#three.
Enacted in December 1941, by the National Service Act 2 which made conscription of women aged 20-30 legal and
in 1943 it was changed to 18-60 years old.
 3

As the war progressed, each country found an increasing need for the men who were

working in non-combat positions. The US government in 1942 and earlier by Great Britain

(1939) that women could join the armed forces to fill the void left by those men. 6 Separate,

women only auxiliary branches of the Army, Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps in the United

States were implemented. 7 In Britain, branches of the Navy, the Auxiliary Territorial Service

(ATS), as well as the Air Raid Precautions (ARP), and the Women's Voluntary Services (WVS)

began employing women. 8 These women were still forbidden to use weapons nor were they

allowed to fight on the front line.

Unknown to most citizens in either country, the United States and Great Britain also

started secret organizations that hired men and women for clandestine work. The SOE hired

women for covert operations from its beginnings in 1940. However, the US government never

expressively authorized the use of women for covert operations. It is common knowledge

among OSS historians and its enthusiasts that women, namely Virginia Hall, Amy Thorpe Pack,

Maria Gulovich were utilized by the OSS, but were actually affiliated with their British

counterpart, the SOE. Allowing the US to deny any association with the women in the event they

were harmed or killed in action. 9

6
Yellin, Our Mothers’ War, 112; John Anderson, “Manpower: Employment of Women by Government
Departments,” November 21, 1941, 67/9/131, CAB,
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/DoLUserDownload/kkeith@bgsuedu/cab/67/9/131/0001.pdf.;
accessed April 25, 2012.
7
Olga Gruhzit-Hoyt, They Also Served: American Women in World War II, 1St Edition (Birch Lane Pr, 1995), 61,
102, 125, 1, 150, 139, 191. In the US they created the WAC, WAVES, a women’s section of the Marines Corps, the
Army Nurses Corps, WASPs, SPARs, and the OSS
8
"Women on the Home Front in World War Two.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwone/women_employment_01.shtml#three. In Great Britain the
government created the RAF, ARP, fire service, WVS, ATS, WRNS, WAAF, FANY, SHAEF, and the SOE It
should also be noted that both countries also had a Women’s Land Army which was in charge of agriculture growth.
These groups allowed the men to leave the fields and join the fight.
9
Elizabeth P. McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies: The Women of the Oss, Reprint (Naval Institute Press, 2009), 12–13.
 4

HISTORY OF THE SOE

When the SOE became an active part of British secret intelligence (1940- 1946), the

agency was responsible for “setting Europe ablaze.” 10 The Prime Minister of England (Winston

Churchill) declared that “a new organization shall be established forthwith to co-ordinate all

action, by way of subversion and sabotage, against the enemy overseas…This organization will

be known as the Special Operations Executive,” and came under the direction of Hugh Dalton. 11

The SOE was, according to M.R.D. Foot, an “essentially unorthodox formation, created to wage

war by unorthodox means in unorthodox places.” 12 Its members, men and women, were split

into sections designated by country and each section was responsible for sending agents into

their respective country to start or to help emerging Nazi resistance movements.

RECRUITING AND TRAINING SOE AGENTS

Those individuals recruited into the SOE, whether by an invitation or chosen from other

military agencies usually knew someone already working for the agency. While there was no

specific order given defining the “type” of individual the agency should search for, potential

candidates needed to be “unconventional, “secretive,” “quick, keen, accurate,” brave and

adventurous whether they worked in the office as secretaries, clerks or in the field as saboteurs

and spies. They oftentimes came from privileged families and attended the most elite schools of

the day. 13 The agents were also expected to possess a native speaker’s command of foreign

languages. This allowed them to pass as citizens and to escape detection by the Gestapo and

their affiliated security agencies. Men and women had to be British or US citizens (sometimes

10
M. R. D. Foot, SOE in France; an Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France,
1940-1944, History of the Second World War (London: H. M. Stationery Off, 1966), 11.
11
M.r.d. Foot, SOE in France: An Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940-
1944, 2nd ed. (Frank Cass, 2004), 8.
12
Ibid., 12.
13
Foot, SOE, 1940-46, 47.
 5

after they became affiliated with the agency) as a matter of national security to work in the

offices. In the field, however, they needed to pass for a native in the country they were assigned

to as this afforded them a certain amount of security from the Germans. 14

As part of the SOE, women were employed both in the office and in the field. The

agency’s hiring practices did not sexually discriminate and many of the women agents, behind

enemy lines, worked as couriers and wireless operators. The SOE recognized early in the war

that women were less likely to be stopped for questions by the Gestapo than the male agents. 15

The “F” section of the SOE employed fifty women as clandestine agents (the largest number of

any section in the agency) and offered them honorary membership as FANY or WAAF

members. It was believed that membership in these organizations would spare the women from

being tortured or killed if they were caught. For their part, these women agents served in many

of the key missions during the war. Of the most famous female agents, Virginia Hall, Violette

Szabo, Christine Granville, Nancy Wake and Noor Inayat Khan, served in France under the

direction of F Section, which was led by Major Maurice Buckmaster.

The men and women of the SOE did not go blindly into the field; training for the agents

was physically and mentally rigorous and served as a way of weeding out those recruits who did

not possess the physical and psychological traits considered necessary to be secret agents. The

training was no different for male recruits than it was for the females. Potential agents began

their training like service personnel in all other military branches, with basic training for two to

four weeks in secret locations along the English countryside. Followed by psychological testing

to insure they would not crumple under enemy pressure (this technique was taken from the

American OSS). From there, agents went through paramilitary training for 3-5 weeks where

14
Foot, SOE in France, 51–53.
15
Ibid., 39–47.
 6

they trained in “silent killing” and in the use of various weapons. Some agents were also trained

to use explosives, and all of them learned survival skills, and how to parachute from a plane.

Those agents who showed the greatest potential underwent training to be undercover agents.

There they were taught to look natural in any setting even while doing unnatural things. They

were educated on how to react if captured and interrogated, along with the coding skills they

would need to transmit and receive messages and counter-espionage techniques like the use of

propaganda and handling explosives.16

In order to comprehend what these agents did to serve their countries there must be an

understanding of who these agents were. As expected, the men in both countries served in the

armed forces by the millions. Whatever their reasons for joining—escaping problems at home,

searching for adventure, a desire to use weapons, pressure from family or friends, patriotism or a

lack of other employment options—they fought, suffered and died for the cause of freedom. The

expectations of their governments and countrymen that they would fight does not diminish their

heroic deeds in any way. However, the reactions to the threats of Nazism by women were, in

some cases, entirely unexpected. As was customary for the time, women worked in the home

and rarely in factories or munitions plants. It was even less common for women to join the

military prior to the war. The social restraints placed on women at that time limited their choices

of occupations. Therefore, once women were legally permitted to join the auxiliary branches of

the armed forces, many did. Although the concept of allowing women to participate in the

military was imperative to freeing up the men for the frontlines, many women joined as a result

of their own deep sense of patriotism and began training for noncombat positions in each of the

branches of the military for both countries. Some women went far beyond what was expected of

16
Ibid., 53–58.
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them while in the military and worked with their fellow countrymen behind enemy lines as secret

agents.

HISTORY OF THE OSS

In the months prior to its official beginnings in 1942, the concept for the OSS was being

discussed in the White House. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had already appointed William

“Wild Bill” Donovan to head its predecessor, the Office of the Coordinator of Information

(COI). Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the COI’s propaganda division became part of

the Office of War Information (OWI) that later became the OSS. The job of the OSS was to plan

and execute acts of “espionage, sabotage, ‘black propaganda,’ guerrilla warfare, and other ‘un-

American’ subversive practices.” 17 This enterprise included both men and women in top-secret

administrative positions and as field agents. Women, for the most part, filled the offices as

secretaries, telephone operators, file clerks, and code breakers. Fewer women were employed in

the sections called Special Operations (spies), Operational Group (foreign language specialists

and saboteurs), and Maritime Unit (underwater explosive experts) where their duties included

subversive actions but there were 38 women who served in capacities like these.18

RECRUITING AND TRAINING AGENTS OF THE OSS

Recruiting for the OSS began in 1941 when Donovan enlisted “close friends, business

clients, club members, professors from elite colleges, linguists, [and] established writers.” 19

Donovan would “frequently recruit daring individualists, including, bold risk-taking, rule-

17
Richard Harris Smith, OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency, 1st ed. (Berkeley:
University of California Press, Ltd., 1972), 1–2. Black Propaganda was a technique used during the war that
supplied false information to the opposing side that appears to be coming from their own side. This was often done
with radio broadcasts or by intercepting mail and rewriting it with false information or information that would lead
civilians to believe the war was going much worse that their governments were telling them it was going.
18
McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies, 12–13.
19
Ibid., 6.
 8

bending or breaking journalists, adventurers, professionals, entrepreneurs or others.” 20 This

caused many dismissive government officials who did not agree with the need for such an

organization to nickname the agency “Oh So Social.” 21 Generally, from privileged backgrounds,

the recruits continued to bring in their friends to work in the new agency. The male dominated

armed forces also saw no need for an organization full of untrained socialites funded by a “blank

check.” Their existence and hiring practices (women in positions of administrative power)

represented a gendered threat to the established structures of the American military. By 1942,

the recruits were largely military trained civilians who were daring enough to accept positions

they knew little about. In keeping with the prevailing sexist attitudes, admittedly typical for the

time, many of the female agents and personnel were in their early twenties and met agency

standards for beauty. Donovan said “the right type of office worker was a cross between a Smith

College graduate, a Powers model, and a Katie Gibbs secretary” (Gibbs was Donovan’s

secretary). The women recruited by the agency all came from prestigious schools. These

women worked in OSS offices all over the world where their command of foreign languages

became a useful tool.22

Being able to speak a foreign language fluently increased the chances of these women

working outside of the US and it increased their chances of being chosen to work as undercover

agents in the field. While this was not a common occurrence within the OSS, the agency did

make use of women in covert operations. The US, through the OSS, used women who actually

worked for the SOE but had American ties (either by birth, marriage or common cause).

20
John Whiteclay Chambers,II, OSS Training in the National Parks and Service Abroad in World War II
(Washington, D.C.: US National Park Service, 2008), 66, accessed May 1, 2012,
http://www.scribd.com/doc/40497638/OSS-and-NPS.
21
McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies, 6., 6.
22
Ibid., 14.
 9

Virginia Hall, Maria Gulovich, Amy Thorpe Pack, Barbara Lauwers, and Elizabeth McIntosh

were just a few of the women placed in operation by the OSS around the world.

Before agents were sent into the field, they were required to undergo extensive training.

Before the OSS became an official active agency Donovan spent four weeks at an SOE training

facility learning as much as he could about clandestine warfare tactics. He, along with a few of

his new recruits, attended a training camp by the SOE in a secret location outside of Toronto

called Camp X. The agents who first trained in the camp “learned the principles of special

operations warfare: infiltration, field craft, and concealment, the use of various Allied or enemy

weapons, hand-to-hand combat, guerrilla leadership and sabotage.” 23 His men trained in

“undercover work, intelligence gathering, security and reporting.” The agents that were

specifically recruited for espionage were sent to an informal civilian location where they took

classes for up to four weeks. They learned their cover stories, honed their skills of observation

and concealment, practiced safecracking and unarmed combat, learned the art of bribery, how to

recruit and handle enemy agents, as well as how to code and decode communications using

ciphers. Also incorporated into their four-week course was physical strength training. The

agents used ropes for climbing, football tackle dummies for jiu-jitsu instruction, a wooden

platform for jumping and tumbling to simulated what it felt like to land after parachuting from a

plane, and shallow open pits full of sand for close-combat exercises that involved throwing

opponents down into the excavation. 24

Women, however, were not sent to the OSS Special Operations training camps but to the

OSS Headquarters in Washington, D.C. for their training. 25 The women were trained to read

maps, decipher codes, and on how to use “black propaganda.” The women did receive weapons

23
Chambers,II, OSS Training in the National Parks and Service Abroad in World War II, 59-60.
24
Ibid., 128.
25
Ibid., 69–72.
 10

training before being sent overseas. 26 The women agents used (but not employed) by the OSS

had received their training from either the SOE or the French Resistance fighters. 27 The use of

women by the OSS continued until it officially disbanded in 1945. After which many of the

agents joined its successor organization, the CIA.

HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ISSUES

Much of the existing literature downplays the linguistic, cognitive, and creative

characteristics possessed by the women employed by the OSS and the SOE, traits that made

them assets to each organization. Instead, many historians have overemphasized their aesthetic

attributes. The historiography has shown little change in focus since M.R.D. Foot’s 1966 SOE in

France, about women in either agency. The authors continually direct their audience’s attention

to the physical attractiveness and the sexuality of the women. The focus on physical beauty as

well as their suggestion that those women used their sex appeal as weapons against men, friend

and foe, negated the impressive skill sets that allowed them to successfully perform their jobs.

From the monographs that were available to the researcher, there are no existing works

that included an analysis of women agents without mentioning their sexuality to one extent or

another. M.R.D. Foot published his SOE in France in 1966, which became an “official” record

of the military history of the SOE. In order to write an historical narrative, Foot had been given

exclusive access to the archives of the SOE by the British government. Throughout the book,

Foot argued that the SOE, for all its failures, was primarily successful in its operations in France.

In his chapter titled “Strategic Balance Sheet,” Foot provided evidence that the SOE in France

26
Ibid., 82.
27
Ibid., 598. It becomes clear that American women employed by the OSS were not trained in combat or covert
maneuvers. Why would they not train women too? Was there a fear of political or social backlash? No information
can be found to back up this theory; it is left unaddressed by the historiography. It should be noted that they do
“claim” women like Virginia Hall, a decorated, American born, OSS affiliated, SOE trained agent. As long as they
were successful, these women were recognized after the war for their part in the OSS
 11

had many failures. However, Foot concluded that the work of the agents, women included,

ultimately justified their existence even when compared to the Air Force, Navy and Army forces,

citing a statement by General F.E. Morgan that “a substantial contribution had been made to the

victory by the resistance that had in many cases been guided and supported by SOE.” 28 As to the

effectiveness of the women directly, Foot described their work as wireless operators, couriers

and operations officers, and states that they were also used “in the field…..with much success.” 29

According to Foot, potential agents were apprised of the “sort of risk they were taking

on” and he concluded that “not many women who seemed promising enough from SOE’s point

of view to be worth interview[ing] would be likely to quail at the thought of a singularly nasty

death, perhaps preceded by outrageous torture, if caught; and fighting enthusiasm can be quite as

strong in one sex as in the other.” 30 It is in the above statements alone that Foot references any

differences between the agents of the SOE as women or men. Early in his narrative he stated

that the women agents “will receive no special treatment [below]; as they would have wished,

they will be dealt with like any other agents in their circuits, according to the work they did. 31

Because of Foot’s work, other historians and authors began to research the SOE and later the

women who served as secret agents.

Foot’s arguments regarding the use of women as agents and their subsequent failures and

successes during WWII were the beginning stages of the scholarship on the topic. Numerous

historians and journalists in their own interpretations of women agents have cited the information

contained in SOE in France. Foot refrained from any suggestions that these women used their

sexuality while working as agents to escape danger or that it had anything to do with why the

28
Foot, SOE in France, 433–445.
29
Foot, M.R.D., SOE in France, 47.
30
Ibid., 47.
31
Ibid., 48. Foot does however dedicate an appendix to the women agents that lists their names, operations and their
status at the end of the war.
 12

SOE recruited them. Foot’s portrayal of the men and women who risked their lives to defeat

Hitler in France allowed future writers access to archival information that has since been sealed.

Great Britain will not allow access to most personnel records until sometime after 2031. Even

then, not all files will be declassified. 32

For a comprehensive history on the OSS researchers can refer to the book by Richard

Smith, OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency, which

chronicles the history of the secret agency in the United States. Smith describes OSS agents as

“left-wing intellectuals” who belonged to some of the wealthiest families” and as being

“idealists” with a “majority being under 30 years old…who possessed an ability to get along

with other people and a freedom from disturbing prejudices.” 33 This characterization also applied

to women agents. In addition, he stated that information obtained by the women agents proved

to be “of considerable value.” For instance, agent Therese Bonney was resourceful enough to

escape the Nazis. During a mission, she made her way to “Helsinki and managed to arranged a

clandestine rendezvous with Mannerheim (Finland’s military and political strongman),” where

she attempted to convince him to join with the Allied forces. Even if she did not persuade him to

break with the Nazis, she did “return to Washington with vital information about Finland’s

military posture and the extent of Nazi influence” there. 34 Another woman mentioned by Smith

in OSS, Julia (McWilliams) Child who later became a famed television chef, also worked as

office staff maintaining meticulous files. 35

32
Ibid., xx.; The National Archives, “The National Archives | DocumentsOnline | Search Results Summary,”
accessed April 16, 2012, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/search-results-
summary.asp?searchType=quicksearch&pagenumber=1&queryType=1&catid=*&query=women%20soe&first_date
=19000101&last_date=19491231.Accessed November 17, 2011.
33
Smith, OSS, 15, 23, 29. The quote is from the OSS psychologist John Gardner.
34
Ibid., 198–9.
35
Ibid., 269.
 13

Smith’s assessment of the OSS was well researched and his arguments supported by

ample secondary sources as well as personal interviews or correspondences with former OSS

members and State Department employees. Smith failed however to adequately assess the

effectiveness of the agents or the agency. Smith leads the reader to believe, by his word choices

and the overall tone of the first few chapters, that the OSS was a failure. Yet, he cites numerous

examples of the agents' successes. The failure to conclusively convince the reader of the

effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the agency coupled with the very few and/or vague references

to women agents left his narrative incomplete. In addition, it should be mentioned that of the

fourteen pages that list Smith’s primary and secondary sources women produced fewer than ten

of the sources. 36 This lack of female authors suggests that Smith intentionally overlooked or

possibly excluded works by women. Many historians have used information obtained from

Elizabeth McIntosh, Mary Bancroft or Mary Pidgeon to supplement their historiographical

research. McIntosh and Bancroft supply many historians with first-hand an account of women in

the OSS, yet Smith chose to exclude them from his bibliography and does not offer an

explanation to his readers.

Other sources available have integrated women into the history of the OSS and the SOE

and have established a narrative framework from which female agents may be studied.

However, several common gendered themes were found in which the authors diminished the

importance of women agents by focusing on their beauty, sexual behaviors, and romantic

relationships. The resulting histories detract from the heroic tasks preformed by the agents by

placing more emphasis on attractiveness or the women’s use of their sexuality as a tool than on

the results obtained by the agent. They also fail to encourage women’s equality or the need to

36
Ibid., 421–35. It is not to say that only women are capable of researching women agents, however for secondary
sources the female perspective could add insights to the topic where male insights might be lacking. Common
experiences and/or shared perceptions by women could have given his analysis more depth.
 14

draw attention to how women were (and are currently) represented in history. The effects these

books had on the genre of women’s military involvement resulted in an over exaggeration of

female sexuality and an underrepresentation of their accomplishments. In stark contrast, these

histories fail to focus attention on the appearance or sexuality (unless in direct reference to a

woman) of men in the paramilitary organizations. This double standard can be seen in the latest

publications as readily as it was in the 1960s.

The histories of Foot and Smith focused on the women agents and the jobs they did, the

missions they were a part of and the success or failure of their missions. As stated before, Foot

is the only author represented who most objectively handled the women agents. 37 Foot’s

assessment of their performance allows a researcher to cite his work with a confidence that most

other authors do not offer. Smith also attempts to justify the use of American women as spies for

the OSS but continually makes mention of their appearance. He discussed the “beautiful young

American war correspondent,” Therese Bonney, who was sent to Finland on a mission. Later in

the book he refers to her as a “vivacious American.” 38 Another example from Smith’s work is

Emmy Rado, “an attractive Swiss born OSS analyst” who offered ideas for collaborating with

the Catholic and Protestant churches in order to set up a post war German government. Then

there was the “vivacious” Rosamond Frame who helped expose traitors in the Chinese

37
In SOE 1940-45, also by written by Foot (1984), he mentions the women agents again. This time, however, he
states that “By no means [sic] all of F section’s women agents had that ordinary, unassuming air which is so
precious an asset for a clandestine; several had the stunning good looks and vibrant personality that turned men’s
heads in the street.” (60) Further on in the book there are distinctions made between men and women agents and less
importance on viewing them as equals as he had in SOE in France. What caused Foot to deviate from his earlier
objectivity? It should also be noted here that in his chapter “Recruiting and Training,” Foot states that some of the
women were recruited based on their looks. These women were placed in the field to “counterbalance” the other
women agents (60). No other author makes this distinction or states that the women were hired strictly because they
were attractive. Nor does any other author imply that attractiveness was part of the job description or a requirement
for employment with either agency.
38
Smith, OSS, 198.
 15

embassy. 39 His obvious reference to the attractiveness of those women continually detracts from

their effectiveness as spies. It is also important to restate that his sources lack women

authors/correspondences and that he does not mention when or how women came to work for the

OSS. Addressing these both establishes for the reader that Smith’s history of the OSS is

incomplete and calls attention to Smith’s own gender biases which have allowed the issue to

propagate. It would appear, by his virtual exclusion of them, that he purposely did not include

women because Smith considered their role unimportant.

Emily Yellin and Olga Gruhzit-Hoyt both address how women entering the military at

the start of the war were treated based on their gender. They both argued that women were

treated unfairly if they performed jobs other than those traditionally filled by women. As long as

women stayed behind the frontlines in noncombat roles, usually as nurses or secretaries and in

the OSS, no one seemed to mind. However, if these women held any other position, they

suffered incredible discrimination from men, their superiors, native people, and even from other

women as the Charity Adams story recalled. Adams was one of the first black women accepted

for the first officer candidate class of the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) and was

stationed overseas. Adams described being followed on the street by white people and being

called names she had never heard before like “Negress.” 40 Women also suffered from sexual

discrimination by the government. The so-called “victory girls” who had sexual relations with

soldiers (but were not prostitutes) became the target of propaganda that stated women, not men,

spread venereal diseases. Posters and pamphlets were distributed which depicted women as

39
Ibid., 223, 269.
40
Gruhzit-Hoyt, They Also Served, 64–71.
 16

worse than Hitler or Hirohito and brandishing statements like “’she looked clean’ is the familiar

lament of the victim of venereal disease.” 41

While sexual and racial discrimination was addressed in their books and Yellin and

Gruhzit-Hoyt attempted to” right the wrongs” speaking out about it, they in fact fostered the

notion of subjugating women by their own descriptions of the women. Yellin, for example,

points out how men in the military would start rumors about those in the women’s corps being

“prostitutes…and had gotten pregnant while ‘servicing’ male troops.” These rumors were untrue

and were addressed quickly by the War Department. 42 While Yellin attempted to dismiss rumors

and restore the virtue of the women she also made constant reference to their attractiveness and

their sexual practices. Amy Thorpe Pack, according to Yellin, had conceived a child out of

wedlock before becoming an OSS agent and her husband forced her to give up the child in order

to spare himself the humiliation when it was born only five months after they were married.

Pack’s personal story really had no relevance to her job as an agent, but was included by Yellin

anyway. She also described the “whirlwind romance that blossomed into true love and

marriage” between Alice Marble and Joseph Crowly who both worked as secret agents. Army

Intelligence officials asked Marbel to travel to Switzerland to reestablish contact with an old

boyfriend who was harboring stolen Jewish goods for the Nazis. To her surprise, they

reconnected and fell in love again. Marble was forced to make a choice; the war effort won and

she photographed the records the Army requested and fled. Marble’s emotions were knowingly

exploited by the Army when they asked her to accept the mission and then again by Yellin who

could have left out the sections of the story that involved Marble’s falling for her former lover

again. While the anecdote made salacious filler, it had nothing to do with Marble’s tasks. The

41
Yellin, Our Mothers’ War, 316–17.
42
Ibid., 131.
 17

rest of the story is what made Marble the hero, not because she had to deceive the man she loved

but because she was able to obtain enemy intelligence that was used to fight the war against the

Germans. 43

Each of Olga Gruhzit-Hoyt’s chapters in Our Mothers’ War begins with a short

biography of the woman featured. Some chapters just give a name and when they enlisted, in the

particular branch to which they belonged, while others were more detailed and discussed the

women’s dreams and aspirations. All of the chapters also end with a “what happened to them

after the war” paragraph. It is in these short paragraphs that Gruhzit-Hoyt reinforced the very

gender stereotypes that the book purported to debunk. She includes statements along the lines of

“After the war Dorothy Barnes Stephens became a ‘full-time army wife,’…She raised her four

children…” As well as, “Bee Falk married Joseph Haydu in 1951 and had three children…”

followed by “Bee considers her greatest contribution to the WASP was being instrumental, along

with many others, in seeking military recognition for the women who had been denied it in the

war.” 44 That last sentence would have served as enough information for the “what happened to

them after the war” as addressing their marital status just placed them in a lower position, behind

their husbands, and seems to reestablish that a woman’s worth was based on marriage instead of

on their war efforts.

The actual stories about these women, the ones between the biographical information, are

both fascinating and heroic at times. Yet Gruhzit-Hoyt intersperses dating and romance into

them too. Only her section on the OSS agents is different. This section has two stories

specifically about the agents Elizabeth Davey Velen and Charity Adams and focuses strictly on

their duties and experiences as they related to the OSS It is Gruhzit-Hoyt’s last chapter that is

43
Ibid., 231, 244–5.
44
Gruhzit-Hoyt, They Also Served, 114, 184.
 18

the most difficult to understand. Here she lists biographies of women in short paragraphs and all

too often used phrases equaling “she fell in love with…and they were married…” and “she was

‘date raped’ twice because she was ‘too trusting.’” 45 While it can be useful to know what

happened to these women after the war, the inclusion of marital status seems irrelevant if the

focus of the book is to prove how women broke from traditional roles of wife and mother and

helped their country win a world war. To the rape reference, the use of “too trusting” places

direct blame on the victim and insinuates that it was her fault that these men forced themselves

on her. It also devalues the work women did during and after the war to promote equality of the

sexes.

Biographies and autobiographies alike discuss every aspect of the war and the part

women agents played in it. However, there exists a striking similarity to the general histories in

that the authors overemphasized the sexuality of the female agents and not that of the males. For

their part, the monographs of female agents detail their experiences behind enemy lines but also

describe the use of their own sexuality as a means to meet the demands of their positions. The

authors often undermine personal agency, with regard to their sexuality, however. For example,

Nancy Wake recounted a meeting with German soldiers and admitted to using her feminine wiles

to avoid detection. She acknowledged that she “would just look over to the officer, flutter my

eyelashes and say ‘Do you want to search moi?’ and they would laugh flirtatiously” and let her

go. All the while, she claims to have been thinking ‘I longed to break their fucking necks.’” 46

Peter Fitzsimons’ constant reference to her looks then took her agency from her. His references

feed into the sexualizing of Wake and diminish the accomplishments she made during her time

in the field.

45
Ibid., 249–62.
46
Peter Fitzsimons, Nancy Wake: The Inspiring Story of One of the War’s Greatest Heroines (HarperCollins
Entertainment, 2002), 239.
 19

METHODOLOGY

This thesis will look at the existing historiography on women in the SOE and OSS as

primary sources. In looking at the texts, I will focus on the way in which the authors chose to

write about the female agents with an emphasis on their sexuality and physical appearances and

argue that by emphasizing those characteristics the literature draws attention away from the

effectiveness of the women. By using sources deemed as secondary as primary sources the focus

will be on the resulting historical contributions made by the literature and not necessarily on the

women. I argue that the existing histories of these women focus on the gendered binaries which

existed at the time and place in which the women served as agents. The use of language that

objectified women reflected the way in which women were treated by society during the 1940s.

This idea holds true even though most of the monographs referenced were published within the

last twenty years.

By analyzing the historiography available, as well as employing the theory of

“performativity” in which Judith Butler argues that the idea of femininity is assigned by society

and women perform those characteristics in such a way that others actually believe that they are

feminine and thusly incapable of masculine behavior, this study contends that the women used

their agency and chose when they needed to use femininity and sexuality to complete their

missions.47 By “subverting sexual stereotypes,” as Joan Tumblety asserts, the female agents

were able to use the stereotypes to fulfill their duties and escape capture by the Gestapo. 48

However, it was because of necessity and by their own choice that these women used

their sexuality. The authors of the existing literature, in fact, take that agency from these women

47
Juliette Pattinson, “The Best Disguise: Performing Femininities for Clandestine Purposes During the Second
World War,” in Gender and Warfare in the Twentieth Century: Textual Representations, ed. Angela K. Smith
(Manchester University Press, 2004), 133.
48
Ibid., 133–34.
 20

when they focus attention on their physical appearance because it distracts the reader from the

true nature of the women’s actions. The idea that “sex sells” should be taken into account when

evaluating their writing as well as the fact that many of the texts are published by entertainment

presses. However, neither of these negates the responsibility of the authors to accurately and

fairly depict the male and female agents. The emphasis on beauty extends only to those female

agents who were seen as conventionally attractive but not to men or those women not seen in

that way.

Chapter Four compares the two agencies and their treatment of women working for them.

This chapter will explore the discrepancies in pay as well as the positions available to the women

in the US and Great Britain. Based on the information found in Smith’s OSS and Foot’s SOE in

France, I will argue that the US limited women to a greater extent than the British when it came

to allowing women to work with weapons and in the field. There was also an element of

deniability for the US in that it never explicitly used American women as clandestine workers.

Due to the social acceptability of women’s employment, the US used women employed by the

SOE, I suggest, that if something went wrong i.e. failed missions or death, the US would be able

to deny that the women worked for the OSS.

CHAPTER STRUCTURE

It was determined that the best approach to structuring this work would be to address

each country individually and then compare their use of women as agents in a separate chapter.

Each agency will be explored using both primary sources as well as the existing historiography.

These texts, for the most part, will serve as the primary sources. Their content supports the

argument of the over-sexualization of female agents. The use of monographs on each agency is

twofold. First, the information obtained from each source gives details and historical insights
 21

into the subjects and secondly, and perhaps most importantly, these sources solidify the

argument that the women agents were over sexualized leading to a diminished history about their

true contributions. Citing specifically from the texts will give the reader a clear understanding of

just how the word choices of the authors made the women subordinate to their male counterparts

in almost every existing history, biography and even autobiographies of women agents working

for the OSS and SOE during WWII.

Using a separate chapter for the comparison of the OSS and SOE will allow for a more

comprehensive analysis of the similarities and differences between each agency concerning the

women agents as well as identifying the language used in the current historiography that detracts

from the heroic feats accomplished by the women in each agency.

In the second chapter, which examines material related to the SOE, I will present

evidence to refute claims made by historians that these women agents used their sexuality and

beauty as a type of weapon against men. Instead, this thesis will emphasize the mission-oriented

accomplishments of these agents as opposed to highlighting their superficial physical features.

Many female agents found themselves in the hands of German soldiers, tortured and imprisoned

in concentration camps. These women, even under the most terrifying circumstances, refused to

give their enemies information and many died as a result.

Chapter Three will highlight the OSS from its inception through 1945 when it disbanded

and subsequently became the present day Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In addition, the

chapter will focus on the use of women as clandestine agents in Europe and the Far East. Special

attention applied to where these women agents came from (their socioeconomic backgrounds and

educational levels) and how and why they joined the OSS. It will also explore the missions and
 22

specific duties of agents in the field. Several agents will be discussed specifically in order to

combat existing historiographical trends that focus on beauty instead of results.

Chapter Four will compare both organizations’ use of female agents and examine how

the existing historiography addressed their roles depending on which country employed them. I

will also address the similarities and differences between both countries’ treatment of female

workers generally and as it applied to the clandestine agents. Here I will also argue that the

OSS’s use of non-American women as agents allowed them to avoid public backlash while

exploring the reasons Great Britain was able to use women and treat them equally from the

SOE’s beginning. The loss of female agents in the field was a reality the agencies faced, but not

on an equal level. The reasons for the discrepancies, I believe, are a result of the agency’s view

on appropriate occupations for women. Finally, this chapter will discuss the advancement of

women in the armed forces because of the women who had worked with the SOE and the OSS.

The final chapter will stand as the platform for the major arguments against the literature

available on female agents. Female representation in history remains unchanged for the majority

of the last sixty years. Women have been continually portrayed as the weaker sex, frail, and of

lower intelligence than men represented in the same book. Regardless of the their focus, women

in the represented literature become routinely sexualized by authors whose intentions are often

stated as wanting to praise these female agents for all of their laudatory deeds during the war.

Bravery, brilliance and quick-mindedness are attributes overshadowed by images of silver screen

beauties flirting and using their feminine wiles to distract enemy soldiers at every turn. It is the

intention of this author to add to the existing historiography a view of the women employed by

the OSS and the SOE that accentuates their exceptionally cunning and daring personas without

distracting gendered references to their physical attributes. In addition, these women deserve
 23

credit for the use of sexuality when they saw fit. These women had their agency diminished with

every key stroke in existing monographs when instead the authors should have been highlighting

their use of natural weapons against the enemy. Without these women and their quick thinking,

the outcome of WWII would have likely taken a different turn.

 24

CHAPTER TWO

THE SPECIAL OPERATIONS

EXECUTIVE

The purpose of this study is not to write another history of either the SOE or the OSS.

Given the scope of this project, as well as the foundational information regarding the history of

the SOE discussed in the Introduction of this work, adding many more details would alter or

detract from the intended goals. This study instead demonstrates that the existing literature

regarding the women of the SOE over-sexualized and ultimately undermined the

accomplishments of the female agents. The Introduction described the conception and

implementation of the agencies as well as the selection and training process of the agents and

office personnel. The issues that need more exploration and elucidation are those pertaining to

the women agents’ actual missions. What follows is an account of five prominent female agents

and their efforts in the fight against the Nazi regime.

As M.R.D. Foot outlined in SOE in France, women and men underwent the same training

when they joined the SOE. The agency did not sexually discriminate when placing agents in the

field; both men and women performed missions behind enemy lines and their positions placed

them in equally dangerous situations. The occupations of women ranged from office workers

and wireless operators to clandestine agents posing as townspeople and socialites. For agents in

the field, gender was of little concern as long as they performed their duties well. Women

underwent training to use firearms, explosives, parachutes and hand-to-hand combat at the same

facilities that men did. 49 The women, for the most part, enjoyed the same level of respect from

fellow agents and SOE personnel as the men experienced. The SOE, as Foot described it, “was

49
Foot, SOE in France; an Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940-1944.
54-58
 25

more or less homogeneous socially,” coupled with the fact that the rank of an individual often

times became a moot point in the field; women sometimes took command of active resistance

groups. 50

However, the freedom and respect the women received was limited. Only those

individuals who knew the women and their affiliation with the SOE extended equal treatment to

them. Society, at large, maintained the gender roles that existed prior to the start of the war.

When Sir Archibald Sinclair told a postwar session of Parliament about the women, including

British women, who were parachuted into France during the war, Parliament and the media

expressed great disapproval. The public outcry over this information led the government to

release few additional official comments regarding the women who served from that point

forward. 51 With little or no information available from government sources, the news media and

historians alike began to speculate about what happened. Their resulting accounts are the basis

for this work’s arguments.

Foot’s monograph cited above is the only existing history of the SOE acknowledged by

the British government. Foot, given unprecedented access to SOE documents, published SOE in

France in 1966 before the records were sealed (and a large number of them lost in a fire). This

book also stands alone in the historiography as the only history that did not differentiate between

men and women agents. The book’s “no special treatment” policy towards women agents has

never since been duplicated in other literature on the subject. 52 This included the follow-up book

SOE 1940-46, published in 1984 by Foot. After the initial history, the records were sealed in the

National Archives leaving the story of the SOE and its agents to be told by authors who lacked

access to the primary sources needed to support an objective account of either. The resulting

50
Foot, SOE in France, 47–48.
51
Ibid., 48.
52
Ibid. 48.
 26

literature consisted of military histories, biographies and autobiographies that shared a common

theme: the over sexualization of women agents which resulted in a diminishing of the women’s

real accomplishments.

The obvious counterargument to this work—that the end result of the existing histories of

the women resulted in a thorough explanation of the experiences and accomplishments of the

female agents—does not take into consideration the diminishing effects the use of descriptive

adjectives referencing the physical attributes of the agents had on the overall impressions the

reader is provided. While the literature does inform the readers about every aspect of an agent’s

work and life, it also forces an impression of that agent on the reader. The writers, whether

intentionally or not, place the female agents into socially constructed gender roles by

emphasizing their beauty and sexuality. Simultaneously detailing her heroic actions and

describing her physical attractiveness allows readers to create mental images of the agent but

also effectively limits the capabilities of that agent for the reader. A quote from John Walker’s

Sue Ryder and the FANYs of SOE exemplified the limitations the descriptions of the agents had

when he depicted Sue Ryder as “a fine-featured and very small person, she nevertheless had

huge reservoirs of energy and compassion and was always ready for some new challenge.” 53 Sue

Ryder’s obvious feminine features overshadowed her contributions to the war effort and

suggested to the reader that she was frail or less physically capable than her male counterpart

was.

Because of the characterizations of female agents in the existing literature, the attention

shown to the women’s appearances also confined the texts to “sensationalized” accounts instead

of “legitimate” historical accounts published by respected university presses. Of the examined

53
Jonathan Walker, “Sue Ryder and the FANYs of SOE,” in Women in War: From Home Front to Front Line (South
Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Military, 2012), 139.
 27

books on the SOE, academic presses published only two. 54 It should be noted, that those two

sources, if they mentioned women at all, did not physically describe the agents. When Churchill

sent the order that allowed the SOE to recruit women and use them as active field agents, who

received the same training and privileges as male recruits, the proposition of equal treatment of

the agents should have extended to those who would write about them later. If SOE’s recruiting

officer, Selwyn Jepson, did not see women agents as different from men, it begs the question

why then did later historians decided to differentiate between the sexes? Jepson’s view of

women was best captured when he declared “air raid bombs that demolish homes and kill

children bring to every woman by every natural law the right to protect, to seek out and destroy

the evil behind these bombs by all means possible to her—including the physical and militant.” 55

The specific positions held by women in the SOE during the Second World War

suggested that they possessed the skills needed to perform what were often dangerous tasks.

These agents involved in missions across Europe carried out numerous clandestine operations

with their male partners as well as other female emissaries. Exactly how many women the SOE

sent behind enemy lines is unknown. 56 The results of their efforts, however, continue to be

recounted today and the names of a few women appeared repeatedly throughout the available

sources. The histories of such agents as Noor Inayat Khan, Violette Szabo, Virginia Hall, Nancy

Wake and Christine Granville (Krystyna Skarbek) describe for the reader the extreme situations

these women found themselves in during their employment with the SOE. The stories that also

drew attention to their sexuality on a number of occasions both forced social constructs of gender

on them and detracted from their successes. Before addressing this argument, though, the exact

54
Foot, SOE in France; David Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, 1940-1945: A Survey of the Special
Operations Executive, with Documents (University of Toronto Press, 1980).
55
Bernard O’Connor, Women of RAF Tempsford: Churchill’s Agents of Wartime Resistance (Gloucestershire:
Amberley Publishing, 2011), 41.
56
Ibid., 40.
 28

nature of what these women did needs some emphasis. Without specific insights into their

accomplishments, it is unlikely that a reader will make the connection of just how distracting the

addition of physical attributes and the attention to their sexuality are to the stories of these

women.

THE WOMEN AGENTS OF THE SOE

Noor Inayat Khan was of Indian and American lineage. Born in Russia in 1914, Inayat

Khan was a descendant, on her father’s side, of the royal Tipu Sultan (the 18th century ruler of

Mysore) and thus an Indian princess. 57 Her childhood, essentially, seemed happy. Her parents

and three siblings settled in a small village in northern France where Inayat Khan attended

school and explored her creative side by writing poems and stories to entertain her family. 58

Inayat Khan spent her young adult life writing and illustrating children’s books and paid little

attention to the events transpiring in Europe. Then in 1939, when Germany invaded Poland,

Inayat Khan’s writing aspirations were stalled. The world’s focus on the events of the war left

little room for her children stories. 59

Muslim by birth and because of her Sufi upbringing that encouraged pacifism and peace

Inayat Khan found herself disgusted by the Nazi ideology and was compelled to do anything she

could to help stop Hitler’s forces. Since she believed a non-violent approach best suit her, Inayat

Khan’s first instinct led her to the Red Cross for training. 60 Caring for wounded soldiers and

civilians seemed to fit with her ideology. However, it did not feel like enough to Inayat Khan.

Therefore, she joined the WAAF as a wireless operator in 1940 and then the SOE in February

57
Shrabani Basu, Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan, 1st ed. (Omega Publications, Inc., 2007), 1.
58
Ibid., 18.
59
Ibid., 33.
60
Marcus Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger: The Women Agents of S.O.E. in the Second World War
(Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2002), 158.
 29

1943. 61 There was a stark contrast between her war efforts up until that point and what was in

store for her in the future. 62

Captain Selwyn Jepson, the SOE’s chief recruitment officer, recalled that Inayat Khan

was “almost perfect for this aspect of work; she was obviously careful, tidy, painstaking by

nature, and would have all the patience in the world.” 63 After her first interview with Jepson she

accepted a position with the SOE, knowing fully the dangers she might face, and was sent for

training at the SOE training schools. Here she underwent the same training all men and women

agents endured. As Foot revealed in SOE in France, many of the comments in her personnel file

suggested that she was not fit for this line of work. Colonel Spooner, head of the school, stated

that she was “too emotional and impulsive to be suitable…she was too sensitive and easily hurt,

but her inexperience, rendered her too vulnerable from a security point of view.” Other agents

being trained along with Inayat Khan agreed and called her “a splendid vague dreamy creature,

far too conspicuous—twice seen, never forgotten—and she had no sense of security; she should

never have been sent to France.” Each comment conveyed a socially constructed image of a

young woman not an ideal secret agent ready for anything. However, the SOE was in desperate

need of wireless operators and Buckmaster, the head of “F” Section, disagreed with their

assessment of Inayat Khan, as did others in charge of training her. Lt. Holland considered Inayat

Khan to be “very eager to please, very ready to adapt herself to the mood of the company, or the

tone of the conversation, interested in personalities, capable of strong attachments, kindhearted,

emotional and imaginative,” all characteristics he believed could serve her well in the field, and

sent her on to France despite any objections. 64

61
Ibid., 160.
62
Basu, Spy Princess, 57.
63
Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 161.
64
Foot, SOE in France, 337; Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 163.
 30

Under the code name Madeleine, Inayat Khan was sent to France to act as the wireless

operator for the PROSPER group in June. 65 She was the first female wireless operator to be

parachuted into the country and not long after her arrival, the Gestapo had begun arresting

members of her group. 66 While wildly published that Inayat Khan often seemed careless, she

managed to avoid capture by the Gestapo as well as send messages with regularity to London

regarding the arrest of fellow agents. On a number of occasions, Inayat Khan had to be scolded

for leaving her codebook unguarded and for not destroying messages sent to her and by her. She

insisted that she was told not to destroy them, but it would appear this was a misunderstanding of

her orders according to Marcus Binney’s findings in Inayat Khan’s SOE personnel file. 67

For all her shortcomings, Inayat Khan became an effective agent in the field. Her

personnel records contained several messages from her detailing the various activities of both

fellow agents and the Germans. Inayat Khan, it seemed according to the file, had become the

wireless operator for several circuits and transmitted for many agents in the few months she was

in France. She also sent messages to London requesting supplies for the resistance as well as for

herself. One report on file from Inayat Khan, dated 18 August 1943, informed London of the

whereabouts of two American soldiers enlisted to help the SOE. A memo from February 1944,

suggests that she may have been helping Allied airmen escape who were shot down in France.

Others detail French traitors working with the Germans in an automobile factory. 68

Along with the notes and memos regarding Inayat Khan’s work in France, her file

contained the story of the events that led to her arrest and details regarding her captivity. In an

65
Foot, SOE in France, 337.
66
Beryl E. Escott, Twentieth Century Women of Courage (Great Britian: Sutton Publishing Limited, 1999), 64.
67
Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 165–66. The line that existed stated that she should “be extremely
careful with the filing of your messages.” Foot in SOE in France, explains that she may not have been familiar with
the use of “filing” as used by journalists to mean “feeding a message into the communications system.”(Foot, 339)
68
Ibid., 169–71.
 31

unusual process, this information was obtained from two Gestapo interrogators with direct

knowledge of the events. Hans Josef Kieffer and Dr. Josef Goetz, in an interview with Vera

Atkins, SOE Squadron Leader responsible for agent coordinator for F Section, after the war

described for her the last month of Inayat Khan’s life.

According to Hans Keiffer, the Germans had been searching for her for quite some time,

but because she was careful not to stay too long at one location, the process took several months.

Through no fault of her own, the Gestapo arrested Inayat Khan in October 1943. Inayat Khan

had been betrayed when the very woman with whom she was staying, Reneé, approached the

Germans and for 100,000 francs (only 1/10 the amount they usually paid for British agents)

agreed to give them the address and description of a secret agent. When the agents were

dispatched they quickly found Inayat Khan, but her SOE training allowed her to evade capture,

at least for a few more hours. Inayat Khan returned to the apartment later that day and Pierre

Cartaud, a French police officer working for the Germans, was waiting. The report given by

Cartaud stated that Inayat Khan fought violently against him; she bit his wrists, drawing blood,

and attacked him until he could get to his gun. Once he had her at gunpoint, he telephoned for

backup. The description given by Vogt, the German officer sent along with a few other men to

assist Cartaud, explained: “Pierre was standing covering her from the farthest possible corner of

the room and Madeleine, sitting bolt upright on the couch, was clawing the air in her frustrated

desire to get at him, and looked exactly like a tigress.” 69

While in the custody of the Germans Inayat Khan refused to give any information to her

captors. Unfortunately, she did not have to supply them with anything in order for them to

obtain information. During her arrest, the Germans found her wireless transmitter as well as her

codes and every message she had ever sent or received, both coded and decoded. The Germans
69
Basu, Spy Princess, 153–54.
 32

took full advantage of their findings and continued communicating with London for supplies,

money and more agents. 70

Just because she was locked in a cell did not mean she had given up. During her

incarceration, Inayat Khan met two other prisoners and concocted a plan to escape. The three

agents loosened the bars on their cell windows and climbed out. With ripped sheets tied

together, they climbed down the building and ran to a neighboring building. Sadly, one of the

men did not make it far and divulged where Inayat Khan and her fellow escapee were hiding.

Upon recapture, the two were asked to promise they would not attempt to escape again; both

refused and were instantly sent to a more secure prison in Germany. This made Inayat Khan the

first British women agent to be sent there. 71

Inayat Khan spent the remainder of her life under the German designation “highly

dangerous prisoner…to be treated in accordance with regulations for ‘Nacht und Nebel-

Rückkehr unerwünscht’ (Night and Fog-Return Not Required).” She received the least amount

of rations needed to sustain life, was dumped in solitary confinement and remained shackled at

her hands and feet. Held like this until September, Inayat Khan was then transferred to Dachau

Concentration camp where on the 13th of the month she, along with three of her fellow SOE

women agents, was brutally beaten and then executed by a shot to the back of the head by the

Gestapo and immediately cremated. 72 For her heroic efforts during the war, the French

government in 1946 awarded her the Croix de Guerre with Gold Star and in 1949 the British

government honored her with the George Cross. 73 Tragically, Inayat Khan was not alone. Of the

70
Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 174–75; Foot, SOE in France, 340–41.
71
Basu, Spy Princess, 165–67; Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 177–80.
72
Beryl E. Escott, Heroines of SOE (The History Press Ltd, 2010), 102.
73
Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 181–82; Daniel B. Breen, “French Croix De Guerre,” Newfoundland’s
Grand Banks, 2012 1999, http://ngb.chebucto.org/NFREG/WWI/ww1-ricketts-croix-de-guerre.shtml. Croix de
Guerre with Gold Star - awarded for bravery to military personnel and for subsequent acts of bravery the recipient
 33

50 women sent to France during the war at least 11 of them did not return. 74 The next woman to

be highlighted is Violette Szabo. Like Inayat Khan, her life ended at the hands of the Gestapo, in

a concentration camp, but not before she did as much as she could to fight against the Nazis in

France.

Violette Szabo, unlike Inayat Khan, came from humble beginnings. Her father, a British

taxi driver and her mother, a French seamstress, raised their daughter in both England and

France. At the age of fourteen, Szabo left school and without telling anyone, went to France as a

show of independence. A short while later, she returned to England and took a job as a perfume

saleswoman. 75 When she was just 19 years old, Szabo joined the Land Army. Her parents were

supportive of the resistance in France and on Bastille Day her mother sent Szabo out to find a

French boy to bring home for dinner. It was on this day that she met Etienne Szabo, a captain in

the French Foreign Legion. They were married within months of that first meeting. The

honeymoon was short because Etienne was called back to duty. During his time away Szabo

joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service and served as anti-aircraft personnel until she gave birth

to their daughter. At the time Etienne was serving in North Africa and never met his daughter as

he was killed in action in 1942. 76

The news of Etienne’s death devastated Szabo. Her sadness turned to anger and a deep

hatred for the Germans. She became ever more determined to exact revenge on the Nazis for

Etienne’s death. In 1943, Szabo responded to a request to meet from Mr. E. Potter (the code

name of Selwyn Jepson), assuming it was to discuss the pension she was to receive after

was awarded a gold star for Corps citations. George Cross- the highest award available to civilians for showing
immense bravery in extreme danger.
74
J. G Beevor, SOE: Recollections and Reflections, 1940-45, First (Bodley Head, 1981), 163. The actual number of
women who lost their lives is unknown. Due to a fire, many of the SOE records were lost and with them evidence
of who returned from the war.
75
Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 219–20.
76
O’Connor, Women of RAF Tempsford: Churchill’s Agents of Wartime Resistance, 183.
 34

Etienne’s death. It was actually an interview for a position with the SOE. She accepted the

position and began her training. 77 Szabo already had plenty of shooting experience and has

repeatedly been referred to as “one of the best shots and the fieriest characters in SOE.” 78 She

may have been proficient with a gun, but according to her trainers her performance in other

activities lacked the same finesse. They described her as “too fatalistic and lacking in initiative.”

They also doubted her suitability for SOE operations stating, “she seems lacking in sense of

responsibility.” While she seemed “pleasant, sociable, likeable, painstaking, anxious to please,

keen, mature for her age in certain ways but in others very childish…being very fit—the physical

side of the training,” their concern lay in the fact that she had a young daughter and one

instructor deemed her “temperamentally unsuitable for this work.” 79 Making the assumption that

mothers were not capable of remaining focused on their duties.

Even as negative as those reports were, Szabo continued her training, slowed down only

by a sprained ankle resulting from a parachute training activity. In April 1944, Szabo landed in

France for her first mission as a courier for the SALESMAN network. 80 While there, she also

“made discrete inquiries, judged the damage to the network and its members, and concluded that

it was in too bad a state to restore.” Her second mission in June 1944 landed her with the French

Maquis. These groups of guerilla fighters consisted of Frenchmen (Jews and republican Spanish

were also members) attempting to escape the German’s new forced labor scheme (Service du

travail obligatoire) and to prevent the German’s from further advancing into France. The SOE

supplied arms, agents, food and financial support to the groups. 81 On one occasion, she spent a

77
Susan Ottaway, Violette Szabo: The Life That I Have (Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2002), 47–51.
78
Foot, SOE in France, 382; Escott, Twentieth Century Women of Courage, 63.
79
Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 222–23.
80
Ottaway, Violette Szabo, 84.
81
Foot, SOE in France; an Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940-1944,
xxi, 283; Foot, S.O.E., 1940-46, 144.
 35

day and a half bicycling around the network to spread instructions to the members. Philippe

Liewer, the circuit leader, decided that she would need to contact another resistance leader more

than 30 miles away, and in doing so, she would firmly place herself in the history of SOE as one

of the most respected women agents. 82

According to Jacques Dufour, the man driving her part of the way to her destination, told

the story they first stopped in a village named La Croisille to pick up his friend Barriaud (he was

to accompany him on the return trip). With Szabo in the front seat, they continued their journey

until they came upon a roadblock and were waved down by a German soldier. Durfour slowed

down and told Szabo to be prepared to run. They each grabbed their weapons as he stopped the

car a short distance from the Germans. Jumping from the car, they began shooting at the

soldiers, injuring three of them. Durfour then ordered Szabo to retreat into the nearby wheat

field as he continued to fire on the men. Under cover of the nearby wheat field, they made their

way toward the wooded area. Not long after, the Germans followed them while firing machine

guns at the moving wheat. At that point, Szabo, who was bleeding from multiple scratches and

possibly a reinjured ankle, told Durfour to continue without her because she was exhausted and

could not go any further. Durfour ran while Szabo covered for him. He admits to hiding in a

haystack on a small farm. Approximately 30 minutes later, the Germans arrived there with

Szabo and questioned her about Durfour’s whereabouts. Eyewitnesses had conflicting stories,

but all agreed that she refused to tell them anything and when offered a cigarette by one of the

soldiers, she refused and possibly spat in his face. Some suggested that one of the soldiers told

her she was the bravest women he had ever met and saluted her before taking her off to prison. 83

82
Escott, Heroines of SOE, 172–3.
83
Ottaway, Violette Szabo, 106–110; Escott, Heroines of SOE, 172–75; Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger,
235–38; O’Connor, Women of RAF Tempsford: Churchill’s Agents of Wartime Resistance, 190; Foot, SOE in
France, 409.
 36

While in Limoges Prison, SS guards interrogated Szabo, before moving her to another

prison for a short time and then eventually to their headquarters at 84 Avenue Foch in Paris. No

conclusive evidence exists regarding the treatment of Szabo during this timeframe. Several

authors suggested that she was violently tortured. Beryl E. Escott, in The Heroines of SOE, avers

that Szabo “endured the cold bath, electric shock treatment and sleep deprivation, along with

other forms of torture” because she refused to give any information. 84 However, there are no

footnotes or work cited in his book to confirm these allegations had merit. Whatever treatment

Szabo faced while in Paris, it was not for long as she was transferred to Ravensbrück

Concentration camp sometime between late August and early September, 1944. 85 During the

transfer, the prisoners sat on the floor chained together and corralled into a coach car of a train.

Along the way and not too far from Paris, British aircraft began firing on the locomotive

inducing panic among the German guards as well as the passengers. Tommy Yeo-Thomas, an

SOE agent, recalled that moment and Szabo’s reaction as proof of her never waning bravery. As

the men were all panicking she went to the lavatory and retrieved a jug of water that she, and the

women she was chained to, handed to them through the bars all the while shouting words of

encouragement. 86

Once Szabo arrived at Ravensbrück in 1944, she along with the other women on the train

began their work details. The motivation of this particular camp was to work the women to

death by way of “malnutrition, indiscriminate brutality and lack of medical care – or execu[tion],

mostly by hanging.” 87 Szabo and several other SOE women planned to escape but were betrayed

84
Escott, Heroines of SOE, 174.
85
Ottaway, Violette Szabo, 140.
86
Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 240–41.
87
Escott, Heroines of SOE, 241.
 37

by another prisoner and had to abort their campaign. 88 At Ravensbrück on January 27, 1945, the

orders received from Heinrich Himmler stated that Szabo, at the age of 23, along with two other

female agents, was to be executed. 89 Vera Atkins obtained a sworn statement from the camp

overseer Johann Schwarzhuber, which confirmed the women’s deaths and immediate

cremations. 90

Szabo was greatly admired by her fellow inmates for her eternal optimism and energy.

Many former prisoners at Ravensbrück recounted their interactions with Szabo as what gave

them the strength to go on. No matter how difficult the guards made it for her, she always

seemed to keep her spirits up as well as the spirits of those around her. Odette Sansom, another

SOE agent imprisoned with Szabo believed she “was the bravest of all of us.” 91 There is no

evidence that would suggest otherwise. She was, posthumously, the first women awarded the

George Cross and the Croix de Guerre with Silver Star under her alias Vicky Taylor and several

memorials, including a museum, have been erected honoring her name. 92

Inayat Khan and Szabo engaged in highly risky operations for their beliefs. These

women lost their lives for the cause of French freedom and subsequently received awards

honoring their efforts in the fight against Hitler. The remaining women that will be discussed

may not have lost their lives, but their bravery and spirit made them heroines of the same caliber

as those who did. Virginia Hall, an American, risked her life for the cause with no real

connection (aside from a sentimental attachment) to either England or France. Her love of all

things French motivated her to assist the British agency. 93

88
Ibid., 174.
89
O’Connor, Women of RAF Tempsford: Churchill’s Agents of Wartime Resistance, 192.
90
Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 243.
91
Escott, Heroines of SOE, 175.
92
O’Connor, Women of RAF Tempsford: Churchill’s Agents of Wartime Resistance, 192.
93
Escott, Heroines of SOE, 35.
 38

Born into a well-to-do family in Baltimore, MD, Virginia Hall attended the finest schools

in the US as well as in France, Germany, and Austria. She was an American who spoke fluent

French, German and Italian, all of which made her an ideal prospect for the SOE. Hall aspired to

work for the American Foreign Service. However, an accident that resulted in the loss of the

lower portion of her left leg put an end to those dreams. In 1935, she joined the French

Ambulance Service only to find that her artificial leg made her ill suited for the job. She left the

Service in June 1940 and headed for London where she obtained a position at the US Embassy. 94

How exactly Hall came to work with the SOE is not clear. She possessed obvious

qualities that would draw the agency’s attention to her, but sources conflict concerning who first

contacted her and about how she came to be on their radar as a possible agent. Escott describes a

situation where Maurice Buckmaster, not yet the head of F Section, met with Hall and took her

under his wing. 95 Marcus Binney suggests that a colleague of Buckmaster suggested Hall for

service in January 1941. There is a memo in her personnel file that confirmed this second

story. 96 Yet Bernard O’Connor suggests that it was Vera Atkins who first noticed Hall and

thought she would make a valuable member of the SOE. Adkins also arranged for Jepson to

interview Hall. 97 How Virginia Hall came to work for the SOE is not as important as what she

did for them.

Under the guise of being an American journalist, allowing her to travel freely through

Europe, Hall went first to Vichy to set up her own safe house for agents. Hall also carried

messages from circuit to circuit as well as convincing local police to release prisoners. 98 Her

94
O’Connor, Women of RAF Tempsford: Churchill’s Agents of Wartime Resistance, 175; Escott, Heroines of SOE,
35.
95
Escott, Heroines of SOE, 35.
96
Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 113.
97
O’Connor, Women of RAF Tempsford: Churchill’s Agents of Wartime Resistance, 175.
98
Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 111.
 39

greatest contribution to the SOE was the intelligence she obtained due to her fluid movement

between social circles and countries. Peppered throughout Foot’s SOE in France are stories of

Hall’s accomplishments. 99 Hall worked as a “travel agent” for F Section and held the title of

organizer for the HECKLER circuit. However, she would not take responsibility for the conduct

of the other agents; she did not have time for that kind of mundane work. 100 Foot also described

Hall as the “principle heroine of the early days” of SOE. She had also taught herself to do Morse

code so she could be of use to the F Section as a wireless operator when she could no longer be

of service as a courier. While in France, Hall traveled around with her wireless set meeting

Maquis members and reported back to London any possible sabotage missions they could

implement. 101

Foot was not the only one to praise Hall’s work with the SOE. In Heroines of the SOE,

Escott tells the story of the “Limping Lady” (as she was referred to by the resistance members)

narrowly escaping the Gestapo by hiking through the Pyrenees Mountains with three fellow

escapees. This was no small feat for someone without a physical disability, which made it much

more impressive that she made this trek many times with only one good leg. 102 In November

1943, Hall was awarded the Medal of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her “constant

support and assistance…high degree of organizing ability with a clear-sighted appreciation…she

has become a vital link between the various operational groups in the field, and her services

99
Foot, SOE in France, 101, 146, 161, 172–9, 193–7, 200–3, 211–23, 258, 372.
100
Ibid., 211. How the group actually performed their duties was not her concern. Hall acted as a liaison between
London and the group but left the details to them.
101
Ibid., 372.
102
Escott, Heroines of SOE, 37.
 40

cannot be too highly praised.” 103 In March 1943, Hall transferred to the newly formed American

counter-intelligence agency, the OSS.

The SOE’s standard operating procedure enlisted British citizens as office personnel. In

the field, the situation was much different. As the war progressed and the need grew for agents

who spoke languages fluently as well as possessed the ability to “pass as natives” in German

occupied countries, they found it necessary to enlist the services of non-British people. 104

Virginia Hall was among the new group of agents trained for clandestine missions in France.

Many other men and women joined her in an effort to fight the Nazis through subversive actions.

Men and women from all over Europe, as well as around the world, felt a certain call to duty.

However, only a select few made it through the interview and training process to join the SOE.

Among those, Nancy Wake, an Australian woman, met their qualifications and proved to be one

of their greatest assets.

Although born in Wellington, New Zealand, Wake grew up in Australia. At the age of

sixteen, Wake received an inheritance from an aunt and with it she traveled to New York,

Vancouver and on to London. 105 While in London, she took a course on journalism that landed

her a position in Paris working for the Chicago Tribune. While on a trip to Vienna to report on

the rise of Hitler, Wake witnessed some of the atrocities the Nazis were conducting and decided

“right there and then…that if ever [she] got the chance, [she] would do everything in [her] power

to hurt them, to damage the Nazis and everything they stood for.” 106 Wake became witness to

103
Escott, Twentieth Century Women of Courage, 122. It should be noted that the French never honored her with an
award for her service in France. (O’Connor, 178) Medal of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) - is the order of
chivalry of British democracy. Valuable service is the only criterion for the award. Non-British citizens are eligible
to receive an honorary award for services rendered to the United Kingdom and its people.
104
Foot, SOE in France, 51–2.
105
Escott, Heroines of SOE, 186; O’Connor, Women of RAF Tempsford: Churchill’s Agents of Wartime Resistance,
198.
106
Fitzsimons, Nancy Wake, 62.
 41

Jewish persecution by the Nazis as she watched Jews being tied to a large wheel and whipped by

the Germans. When discussing it later, in what can only be described as her matter-of-fact

personality, Wake recalled being appalled at what she saw, stating “I thought…what had they

done, poor bastards? Nothing. So I said, ‘God almighty, it’s a bit much and I’ve got to do

something about it.” 107

In 1939, Wake met a Frenchman named Henri Fiocca, a rich industrialist, who offered

Wake a chance to help the resistance in France by funding her missions to rescue refugees in her

converted ambulance. Wake also found herself available to help British POWs on what became

the escape line “PAT” as a courier and transporter of equipment as well as people. Sometimes

she even escorted escapees over the Pyrenees to Spain on her own. 108 Wake was living a double

life as wife and secret agent, jobs she equally enjoyed. As time went on, the Germans eagerly

sought to find the “White Mouse,” the nickname the Gestapo had given her because every time

they had her cornered she would get away, and she was forced to flee through the same route by

which she had helped so many of her refugees. Henri stayed behind and was questioned by the

Gestapo as to the whereabouts of his wife. Henri refused to give them any information, a

decision that would prove fatal. 109 Wake, the entire time she was away, was careful not to

contact Henri for fear of bringing him danger. It was not until near the end of the war that she

was given the news that the Gestapo had killed Henri. Obviously devastated by the news, Wake

also assumed the guilt; he died protecting her whereabouts. 110

During her time away from Henri, Wake executed many missions for the SOE during

which she employed many of the skills she learned in training. Wake, in March 1944,

107
O’Connor, Women of RAF Tempsford: Churchill’s Agents of Wartime Resistance, 199.
108
Escott, Heroines of SOE, 186.
109
Fitzsimons, Nancy Wake, 135, 275; O’Connor, Women of RAF Tempsford: Churchill’s Agents of Wartime
Resistance, 200–1.
110
Fitzsimons, Nancy Wake, 278.
 42

parachuted into France to begin her first mission for the SOE. 111 As part of her job, Wake sent

messages back to London requesting weapons for the 17 Maquis groups she contacted in order to

help. Wake met the airdrops, with the Maquis, to collect supplies. In one instance, the two

Americans who were accompanying a shipment of weapons were captured and Wake led her

group in a fierce shooting match in order to rescue the Americans. 112

With every supply drop from London, Wake and her fellow agents acquired greater

confidence from the Maquis. The resistance group accepted the two men that accompanied her

with greater ease than Wake experienced. She did eventually find a way, however; she simply

out drank them. Her extreme tolerance for alcohol brought about a whole new respect from the

men in the group and according to Wake, “ultimately, they accepted me as one of themselves…if

they were talking and telling vulgar stories as I walked by, they would go on talking. They were

men and they behaved as men, and I never minded.” 113 Their esteem for her placed Wake in a

position to dictate orders that the men would follow. Tradivat, a Maquis leader, said of Wake,

“she is the most feminine woman I know until the fighting starts. Then she is like five men.” 114

Wake just “wanted to kill Germans…didn’t give a bugger about them, to kill Germans…I hated,

I loathed the Germans…As far as [she] was concerned, the only good one was a dead one,” and

she did not care how people felt about that. 115

Wake may have proved herself worthy to the men in the SOE and the Maquis by acting

like one of them, but the tactics she used to escape searches or sometimes even being noticed

were altogether different. Wake realized very early on in her resistance work against the German

soldiers that she could use the accepted socially constructed gender roles of her time. As argued

111
Ibid., 192.
112
Escott, Heroines of SOE, 188.
113
Fitzsimons, Nancy Wake, 209–12.
114
Escott, Heroines of SOE, 189.
115
O’Connor, Women of RAF Tempsford: Churchill’s Agents of Wartime Resistance, 208.
 43

by Juliette Pattinson in her essay, Wake’s use of her sexuality to deceive German soldiers

“affirmed gendered divisions and the significance of her enactment for the accomplishment of

the clandestine tasks in which she was engaged.” 116 In the essay, Pattinson cites a story Wake

shared that she had to travel a very far distance in order to find a wireless operator to send a

message to London. Along the way, Wake hoping to be mistaken for a French housewife out

shopping for food, comes to a German checkpoint. With her basket full of vegetables, she

“would just look over to the officer, flutter my eyelashes and say ‘do you want to search moi?

And they would laugh flirtatiously, ‘No Mademoiselle, you carry on.” Wake used the “tools” at

her disposal and given to her by the existing gender divisions of the 1940s, to continue her work

as an agent for the SOE. 117 Wake did not, however, always use beauty but would also “dress in

antiquated and outmoded clothing to pass as a middle-aged peasant,” which allowed her to pass

unnoticed by German guards. 118

For her efforts and bravery, Wake was awarded the George Medal, the Croix de Guerre

with two palms and Silver Star, Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur, French Resistance Medal,

along with the United States Freedom Medal. In 2001, the Australian government bestowed the

Companion of the Order on Wake making her the most decorated women to serve in the Second

World War. Wake passed away in Britain in 2011 and her ashes were scattered over the field

where she had fought the Gestapo with the Maquis in Montlucon, France. 119

116
Pattinson, “The Best Disguise: Performing Femininities for Clandestine Purposes During the Second World
War,” 137.
117
Juliette Pattinson, “‘The Best Disguise: Performing Femininities for Clandestine Purposes During the Second
World War,’,” n.d., 137.
118
Ibid., 143.
119
O’Connor, Women of RAF Tempsford: Churchill’s Agents of Wartime Resistance, 208. Chevalier de la Legion
d’Honneur - The French Order of the Legion of Honor is the highest decoration that can be awarded for outstanding
merit, civil or military, rendered to the nation. French Resistance Medal – awarded for contributing to the French
people's resistance against the enemy. United States Freedom Medal - the civilian equivalent of the Congressional
Medal of Honor. It honors civilians who made a contribution to the security of national interests of the United
 44

The final SOE agent to introduce is Christine Granville (Krystyna Skarbek). Born in

Poland to a Jewish mother and a father who was of Polish royalty, Granville was a Countess.

Her father loved to live extravagantly and as a result, the family often had financial problems.

Granville’s childhood appeared to be a happy one. She attended the best schools but due to her

untamable spirit was often expelled from them. Her parents sent her to a convent school where,

as a prank, she “set fire to the cassock of a priest” and was soon after told to leave. Granville, it

was said, was “fearless…independent, strong-willed and at times ungovernable.” 120 These

characteristics, along with her ability to “absorb languages,” were all attributes that made her one

of the SOE’s “longest-serving and most capable…women agents, outstandingly brave,

resourceful and alluring.” 121

Prior to her joining the SOE, a date that cannot be determined with a reliable degree of

certainty, Granville worked for the British Intelligence office. According to Madeleine Masson,

Granville’s records indicate she may have worked with it from its inception. 122 Her work with

British Intelligence began in December 1939 when she interviewed with the Foreign and

Commonwealth Office and offered a plan she had devised. She would go to Budapest and

distribute propaganda to keep the resistance alive. Her plan also involved rescuing POWs and

collecting intelligence. Marcus Binney reports that in a report found in Granville’s file dated

December 7, 1939, the SOE believed that “she was a flaming Polish patriot. She made an

excellent impression…we have a PRIZE.” 123

States. Companion of the Order - Australia’s greatest civic honor awarded for eminent achievement in service to
Australia or humanity at large.
120
Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 52; Madeleine Masson, Christine: SOE Agent and Churchill’s
Favourite Spy: A Search for Christine Granville, New Ed (Virago, 2005), 1–8.
121
Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 49.
122
Masson, Christine, 148; Escott, Twentieth Century Women of Courage, 66.
123
Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 53.
 45

By mid-February, she arrived in Budapest and was on her way over the Tatra Mountains

to Poland. 124 Over the course of her six visits to Poland and eight visits to Slovakia, she

collected information about the resistance movements to send back to London and made many

contacts, including connections with the Polish Socialist Party. She also began her propaganda

campaign. 125 The information Granville supplied included “news of new gasses the Germans

were producing, complete with the formulas, as well as up-to-date information on ammunition

factories in Germany and Poland…detailed plans of aerodromes, aircraft factories…torpedoes,

U-boat…” 126

Not long after their arrival, the Gestapo arrested her and Andrew Kennedy. After

repeatedly questioning and beatings, Granville bit her tongue until it bled, faked a coughing fit

and convinced a doctor that she had tuberculosis that led the Gestapo to release them both. Their

repayment from the SOE for all their work was to be fired in 1941. However, this did not end

their SOE work. Headquarters was working to remedy their situation as quickly as they could to

get them back on the books. 127 The British minister, Sir Owen O’Malley recalled, “she was the

bravest person I ever knew, the only woman who had a positive nostalgia for danger. She could

do anything with dynamite except eat it.” 128 Very few people encountered Granville who did not

say some version of the same. She was a striking person who was willing to risk her own life in

order to save so many more.

Finally, in 1944, Granville was sent to France to work for the JOCKEY network as a

wireless operator. She had two missions upon arrival: to help the Maquis and to stop Polish

soldiers working with the Germans. In France she organized many sabotage missions on

124
Masson, Christine, 53.
125
Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 57–8.
126
Ibid., 64–5.
127
Ibid., 72–3.
128
Ibid., 65.
 46

German owned properties. Also, in August 1944, two of three of her comrades were arrested by

the Germans. She risked her own life negotiating 2 million francs for their release. She had to

ride a bicycle, of which she had a fear, almost 25 miles, one-way, to collect the ransom money.

She arrived in time and her friends were released. Just a year later, her career with the SOE was

over; her last scheduled mission to Warsaw was cancelled indefinitely. Colonel Threlfall,

Christine’s SOE commander recalled that Christine “had brains, energy and drive.

Unfortunately, we had not cut-and-dried job for her, but she was helpful in filling in the Polish

background for the British officers we intended dropping into Poland.” In May 1945 she

received £100 and “a grateful Government then forgot all about her”. 129 In her Afterword,

Madeleine Masson reveals that during her research she found documents in Christine’s personnel

file suggesting she was a double agent in touch with both the Germans and the Vichy French and

believes this could be the reason for her dismissal from the SOE. 130

Granville’s story ended tragically with her murder in a hotel. In 1952, she was stabbed

through the heart by a man she befriended while working as a stewardess. Dennis George

Muldowney became obsessed with Granville and when she informed him she that she would be

leaving for an extended amount of time he ended her life. 131 For her time in the SOE Granville

received the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE), The George Medal GM), and

the Croix de Guerre. 132

Noor Inayat Khan, Violette Szabo, Virginia Hall, Nancy Wake and Christine Granville

were all brave women. Each woman was remarkable and possessed talents and skills that served

to defeat Hitler and his Nazis during the Second World War. Their reasons for joining the SOE

129
Escott, Heroines of SOE, 214–15; Masson, Christine, 229–34.
130
Masson, Christine, 274.
131
Ibid., 255.
132
Escott, Twentieth Century Women of Courage, 65–6.
 47

varied from a deep desire to help to a profound need to exact revenge on those who killed their

loved ones. They were patriotic and loyal, intelligent and cunning, and it is true they each

possessed physical beauty that they used if the situation warranted it.

The use of their physical attractiveness and femininity as a weapon against the enemy in

times of desperation or as part of their cover story allowed these women to achieve discernible

success behind enemy lines. These agents were well trained in combat and could defend

themselves as well as any male SOE agent, but they knew the risks of fighting the Gestapo.

Fighting would mean risking the mission, or worse yet, the lives of fellow agents, resistance

fighters or even innocent civilians. To lend any credence to the argument that female agents

were selected because of the physical appearance would disrespect the strengths they possessed

and used to assist the Allied forces.

Most of the literature that exists overemphasizes the sexuality of the SOE women. Many

authors are among those cited in this text; however if the focus on their attractiveness is

purposefully left out, the reader is able to better understand (and appreciate) the dangerous

situations they found themselves in everyday. It is also easier to neutralize gender roles when

physical descriptions are not employed as a way of setting these women apart from their male

colleagues; their records of sabotage, destruction, enemy deaths, and other clandestine activities

already draw attention to them. Whether the agent was male or female should make no

difference, but it is obvious by the number of monographs available that pay special attention to

the physical features of the women that it does.

An interesting comparison can be made between the number of times an “attractive

agent’s” physical features are mentioned to those that do not fit the excepted and classical idea of

“pretty.” The focus of the stories of those less attractive women is generally on their
 48

accomplishments and little is said concerning their looks. This same formula applies to male

agents as well. Constructed gender roles certainly factor into this also. Regardless of the gender

of the author, the commonality of their subjects still remained. It could be argued that the work

of women authors focuses on female sexuality more often than with male authors. However,

male authors offer descriptions that are more detailed and they use more colorful adjectives to

describe the women. This phenomenon lends credence to the idea that socially constructed

gender roles of the 1940s have not changed much over the last seventy years. Men and women

still place a great value on the physical appearances of women and are unable to accept that

women were (and are) able to perform dangerous tasks as well as men. By focusing attention on

the women’s looks, it is much easier to keep them in subservient positions citing their frail and

feminine features. Men therefore remained the stereotypical protectors and women the damsels

in distress, when, as these women have shown, the opposite was often the case.

The British historians and authors were not more or less guilty of perpetuating gendered

stereotypes than their American counterparts. As will be demonstrated in Chapter 3, those men

and women writing about the OSS objectified the American agents as well. Sadly, the most

prominent authors, women like Elizabeth McIntosh, worked for the OSS and still sexualize their

female co-workers.
 49

CHAPTER THREE

THE OFFICE OF

STRATEGIC SERVICES

Several months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D.

Roosevelt issued an order for the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) to begin its

work on subversive and “un-American” warfare. 133 This new agency was under the direction of

William “Wild Bill” Donovan, an affluent attorney and decorated WWI veteran. Roosevelt

appointed Donovan (who had served as his war secretary) because he found him to possess a

certain forward thinking, which Roosevelt felt few others in Washington had. With the urging of

British intelligence officials and information that was flooding in from Europe, Roosevelt

created the COI and entrusted Donovan with its formation, organization, recruiting and training

of agents as well as its daily operations. Donovan had recently, by order of Roosevelt, spent

several months in 1940 and 1941 in Great Britain learning all he could about its secret

intelligence agency, and Donovan gained the trust of top British government officials. In June

1941, Donovan and Roosevelt met to solidify the conditions under which Donovan would run

the new agency. Donovan insisted that he answer only to Roosevelt, that the funding of the

agency would remain secret, and that no government departments would question requests made

by this new agency. On July 11, 1941, Roosevelt signed the Executive Order establishing the

COI and Donovan as its Director. 134

Six months later, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the COI’s propaganda

division became part of the Office of War Information (OWI), which later became the Office of

Strategic Services (OSS). The job of the agency was to plan and execute acts of “espionage,

133
Smith, OSS, 1.
134
Douglas Waller, Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage, 1st
Edition (Free Press, 2011), 18–22,69–72.
 50

sabotage, ‘black propaganda,’ guerrilla warfare, and other ‘un-American’ subversive practices,”

as well as, to “plan and operate such special services as may be directed by the United States

Joint Chiefs of Staff.” 135 Donovan enjoyed almost unquestioned authority and possessed

seemingly unlimited budgetary authority to run and fund this new spy organization.

With the secrecy that surrounded this new agency, very few American officials seemed

able to oppose its actions. However, John E. Hoover, head of the FBI, and a few Generals at the

War Department weighed in with their opposition to Donovan running a department which used

subversive measures because they saw him and his department as a “fly-by-night civilian outfit

headed up by a wild man.” 136 Those opposed to the OSS feared that the power given to Donovan

would lead to national security breaches and ultimately cost the nation more than just money.

The civilian packed agency threatened the power of the armed forces and caused men like

Hoover and George Marshall, the Chief of Staff, to lobby for its immediate elimination.

Roosevelt moved forward anyway.

By November 1941, the OWI’s budget reached over $10 million and was largely

unaccounted for by the Treasury Department, yet Donovan was asking for additional revenue.

The money Donovan obtained funded meetings with unnamed informants in Washington hotels

and paid for meals as well as the hiring of office personnel and field agents, office space, training

camps and trips to Europe for research. Donovan hired nearly 600 men and women in 1941;

among them were some of the smartest and most affluent members of society. Families with

135
Smith, OSS, 1–2. Black propaganda was a technique used during the war that supplied false information to the
opposing side, but appeared to be coming from their own side. This was often done with radio broadcasts or by
intercepting mail and rewriting it with false information or information that would lead civilians to believe the war
was going much worse than their governments were telling them.
136
Ibid., 1.
 51

storied names such as Mellon, Morgan, Ford, Goldberg, and Vanderbilt all had members

employed by Donovan’s office during the war. 137

In June 1942, the COI was renamed the Office of Strategic Services, and the organization

established operational branches within the OSS to monitor the enemy and to bring down the

morale of its troops by using psychological warfare. 138 Donovan’s group of Ivy League men and

women, often called “oh so special” by government insiders making puns on the group’s

acronym, was divided into the Communications Branch (CB), Morale Operations Branch (MO),

Research and Analysis (R&A), Research and Development (R&D), Maritime Unit (MU),

Operational Group (OG), Wireless Telegraphy (W/T), Special Operations Branch (SO), Secret

Intelligence Branch (SI), and the Counter-Intelligence Branch (X-2). According to the OSS

Training Manual, the agency was “charged with collecting and analyzing strategic information

and secret intelligence required for military operations, and with planning and executing

programs of physical sabotage and morale subversion against the enemy to support military

operations.” 139 Each group was given specific tasks to perform as part of the "shadow war"

being fought mostly behind the scenes and enemy lines. They were tasked with undermining the

Nazis, the Fascists in Italy, and the Japanese. The men and women of the MO, MU, OG, W/T,

SO, SI and X-2 branches supplied and guided local resistance groups with intelligence and

weapons as well as food and clothing. While the MO group sought to demoralize the enemy

137
Ibid., 16; Waller, Wild Bill Donovan, 93.
138
Anthony Cave Brown, The Secret War Report of the OSS (Berkeley, 1976), 46.
139
“Training Manual” (Government Printing Office, June 1945), 2, Record Group 226 (OSS Documents), National
Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD.
 52

through “black propaganda,” the agents in R&A and R&D gathered intelligence in order to

sabotage enemy occupied territories. 140

THE WOMEN OF THE OSS

Like those employed by the SOE, the British agency after which the OSS was largely

modeled, the men and women recruited into the OSS received extensive training before being

allowed to infiltrate enemy occupied territories. As discussed in the introduction, agents

received training for a wide range of covert operations ranging from intercepting enemy

information, creating “black propaganda,” and fighting techniques, to the use of weapons and

various methods of sabotage. From its creation, the OSS recruited and trained men and women

in each of the aforementioned operations branches; however, the training women agents received

differed significantly from that of the men. A small number of women hired by the OSS were

offered positions overseas and still fewer were trained for combat. Of the 4,200 college educated

women employed by the OSS, the largest portion served as secretaries and file clerks. 141 The

women assigned to the R&A Branch and stationed abroad were more likely to be given

opportunities that directly affected the war. These women acted as code breakers and

propagandists. 142

American women were subjected to gendered social norms to a far greater extent than

was seen in Great Britain, and many women readily admitted to rampant discrimination and

sexual harassment within the agency. Donovan claimed that the OSS did not “rely on the

‘seductive blonde’” to succeed, but many of the women they hired did fit the mainstream

140
Chambers, II, OSS Training in the National Parks and Service Abroad in World War II, 10; Christof Mauch, The
Shadow War Against Hitler: The Covert Operations of America’s Wartime Secret Intelligence Service, trans.
Jeremiah Riemer (Columbia University Press, 2005), 13.
141
George C. Chalou, The Secrets War: The Office of Strategic Services in World War II (Natl Archives & Record
Service, 1992), 24.
142
Ibid., 25.
 53

conventions of beauty and often chose to use their sexuality against the enemy. 143 These women

worked as clandestine operatives, wireless transmitters and most often as couriers.

Among those women stationed overseas that will be featured in the present study are

Virginia Hall, Maria Gulovich and Amy Elizabeth Thorpe Pack. Each woman was affiliated with

the SOE or other secret paramilitary organizations before becoming part of the OSS. Only

Barbara Lauwers and Elizabeth McIntosh (MacDonald) worked exclusively for the OSS, and

while both were stationed in a foreign country, they worked “desk jobs” in the MO Branch. 144

An argument can be made that the OSS used women from the SOE or other nations to do the

“dirty work” in order to avoid the backlash from the American public if something tragic were to

happen to the women. Although Hall was introduced in the previous chapter, this chapter will

highlight her accomplishments with the OSS along with those of Pack and Gulovich. Lauwers

and McIntosh will be discussed with regard to the contributions they made behind-the-scenes

while a part of the OSS. As with the previous chapter, this section about the women of the OSS

seeks to focus less on their physical appearances and more on their effectiveness as agents and

personnel. What follows are the accounts of these women and their accomplishments sans the

attention placed on sexuality that is routinely found in the existing histories concerning each

woman.

Details of Virginia Hall’s upbringing and her work as an SOE agent are furnished in the

previous chapter, and in order to avoid repetition, this section will consider only the assignments

Hall undertook as an OSS agent. Her work with the OSS placed her back in France, with a rank

143
Ibid., 43.
144
McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies, 59–69, 200–207.
 54

of Second Lieutenant in 1943, relaying messages to the OSS via the SOE. 145 The mission,

referred to as SAINT, required Hall to make contact with French resisters and establish a

network for the OSS. This left Hall wholly responsible for organizing drops and distributing

goods to the same groups that were opposed to helping her. 146 This was to be the resisters’ first

experience with a female in command and many refused to acknowledge her authority.

By that time, Hall had become a highly sought after agent in France. The Nazis swore to

“find and destroy her.” 147 They also knew what she looked like and as a result, the OSS had Hall

disguise herself as an old French peasant woman. She dyed her hair gray, used padding under

her rustic clothing and shuffled, as an elderly woman would have, when she walked. Hall went

undetected and was credited for many of the wireless transmissions that assisted the Allies in

planning the D-Day attacks. 148

As a vital member of the operation group called HECKLER, Hall organized other

resistance members whose mission was to attach explosives to several sets of train tracks around

the city of Cosne in central France. Her job was to stand guard while the resister worked. 149 In

just one night, Hall’s group, according to her last report to OSS headquarters, listed her teams’

accomplishments as “destroying four bridges, derailing freight trains, sever[ing] a key rail line in

multiple places and down[ing] telephone lines.” 150 There were also over 500 German soldiers

captured and 150 more killed because of the groups’ actions. 151

145
Escott, Heroines of SOE, 37; Patrick K. O’Donnell, Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs (Free Press, 2004), 173. The
agencies worked closely throughout the war and many SOE agents were employed by the OSS (officially or
unofficially).
146
Escott, Heroines of SOE, 38.
147
Judith L. Pearson, The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America’s Greatest Female Spy (Lyons Press,
2005), 2.
148
O’Connor, Women of RAF Tempsford: Churchill’s Agents of Wartime Resistance, 177.
149
Pearson, The Wolves at the Door, 201.
150
O’Connor, Women of RAF Tempsford: Churchill’s Agents of Wartime Resistance, 178.
151
Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 138.
 55

Hall’s time with the OSS was short but productive. For her service, Hall was honored as

the first woman to receive the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest military award in

the United States. General Donovan suggested to President Truman that he personally present

the award to her. However, she declined stating she was “still operational and most anxious to

get busy.” Her career with the US government did not end after the war. Hall took a position

with the newly formed CIA until she retired from the agency in 1966. 152

It was not unheard of for the American agency to seek out the help of resistance workers

in other countries during the war, and Maria Gulovich was one such operative. The former

schoolteacher was born in Czechoslovakia where her father was a Greek Catholic priest.

Gulovich’s decision to aid her nation in the fight against the Nazis stemmed from the teachings

of her father. Gulovich was taught that God would judge her actions during a crisis and the

quote from Dante’s Inferno echoed in her mind: “The lowest depths of hell are reserved for

those, who in time of crisis, do nothing.” Therefore, when asked to hide a Jewish family friend

from the Germans, she felt it was her duty to help. 153 This was the first of many involvements

she would have over the next few years. In 1944, she joined the Slovak national uprising where

she acted as a Russian translator for the resistance. Not long after, in June, she began working as

a courier under the code name Gita. 154

One of her missions was to escort a highly sought-after Colonel to a guerrilla camp where

she and her partner were forced to pass through several German checkpoints. During this

mission, Gulovich and her partner posed as a married couple who were moving. As they

attempted to pass through the final checkpoint, the guards became suspicious and began jabbing

152
Ibid. 138.
153
Sonya N. Jason, Maria Gulovich, OSS Heroine of World War II: The Schoolteacher Who Saved American Lives
in Slovakia (McFarland, 2008), 17.
154
Ibid., 23.
 56

bayonets into the furniture and clothing the couple were sitting on to conceal the Colonel. Their

narrow escape was facilitated by Gulovich’s quick thinking partner as he told the Germans that

she was pregnant in order to explain away her nervous facial expressions. The mission was a

success and they delivered their “package” without any further incidents. 155

After being officially recruited by the OSS in October, Gulovich was sent to assist a

group of twenty OSS men by acting as their guide and interpreter and was to obtain food for

them along the way from Banska Bystrica to Donavaly. This operation, code named Dawes,

would be the largest the OSS initiated in Eastern Europe. Maria, who spoke fluent German and

Russian, would prove “invaluable when they intercepted Russians as they proceeded further

east” and “[her] familiar[ity] with the political and military situation” was a valuable asset to the

team. Stephen Catlos, OSS Staff Sergeant, also praised Gulovich for her bravery, as she was the

only one in their group willing to enter Nazi-occupied villages to search for food for them. 156

Gulovich led the Americans through the Tatra Mountains where they faced torrential rains, harsh

winds, freezing temperatures and German troops in every direction. Gulovich and the OSS

troops suffered from hunger, frostbite, and were nearly captured over the course of more than

four months before they finally reached the Soviet line. Fifteen members of her group perished

along the way and Gulovich crossed the Allied lines with only two OSS and one SOE agent still

with her. 157

Gulovich’s last mission was to lead the escape efforts for herself and the three remaining

Dawes members from their Rumanian captors. Knowing that attempting to escape from Russia

(which was where they were being transported to by train) would be futile, Gulovich donned a

Russian uniform and persuaded the Russians to allow them to remain in Budapest overnight.

155
Ibid., 25.
156
Ibid., 74.
157
McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies, 155–165.
 57

There, the group devised a plan that allowed Catlos to escape and bring back American and

British troops to rescue them and the other refugees held in the camp before any of the Russians

even noticed. 158

As a reward for her efforts, Donovan personally arranged for Gulovich to be brought to

the United States as an exchange student on scholarship at Vassar, where she graduated in 1948.

However, the United States Army, in a letter to Henry Noble McCracken, the President of

Vassar, denied that Gulovich was ever actually employed by OSS and that the food, clothing and

transportation to the States she had received up until that point was the total compensation she

would receive from the Americans for her efforts during the war. 159 She was also the first

woman awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious achievement in ground operations against the

enemy, an honor bestowed during a full dress ceremony held at West Point in May 1946. 160 It is

the opinion of this researcher that this calculated move made by the United States government

allowed them to avoid giving Gulovich the money she requested to finish her degree, but more

importantly, it permitted them to deny their use of women in arguably failed missions overseas.

Much of the population in the United States after the war was focused on grieving the

loss of loved ones and getting back to the pre-war “normal” they missed. Americans were

overjoyed to have the men home from the front lines and there seemed no reason to ruin that by

disclosing the use of women as secret agents. For all the strides forward women in America had

made while their men were off fighting, the social constraints placed on them remained

unchanged from those they experienced in 1941. At the time, society had been conditioned to

believe that a woman’s place was in the home and most Americans thought it was time for her to

return to it. Those men who served overseas with women might not completely agree with the

158
Ibid., 166–67.
159
Jason, Maria Gulovich, OSS Heroine of World War II, 243–44.
160
Ibid., 260.
 58

rest of the population. Those men stationed overseas who witnessed firsthand the work of

female agents, for example, most likely felt differently. As a case in point, the few members of

the Dawes Mission who survived knew that no amount of money or public recognition would be

enough to thank Maria Gulovich for her guidance and her bravery in a mission that cost many

men their lives. They could agree that to have never let her out of the kitchen would have been

disastrous for the war effort at home and abroad. 161

Both Hall and Gulovich risked their lives while working for the OSS. Working as an

agent in the field required survival skills as well as instincts that most people do not possess.

Elizabeth Amy Thorpe Pack was another of those women who exhibited the ability to assess the

situation she was in and quickly find solutions to any number of problems she may have

encountered. She appeared fearless when facing anything and was resourceful enough to travel

through war torn countries without harm, even before allying with any government agency.

Pack’s privileged upbringing may account for many of the skills she embodied. Her father,

United States Marine Corps Major George Thorpe, and her mother, the daughter of Senator

Harry Wells, raised Pack among highly educated members of society as they traveled around the

world. During her family’s treks across Europe, she mastered what would come to be an

incredibly valuable skill later, her command of foreign languages. Fluent in Spanish and French,

well traveled, associated with scores of foreign dignitaries and ambassadors, and deeply

concerned about the devastation she witnessed in Europe at the start of World War II, made Pack

an obvious candidate for undercover work. 162

The existing literature on Pack, much like those about Christine Granville of the SOE,

suggests that Pack possessed a beauty and charisma that few men could resist. Her sex appeal

161
Ibid., 4,175, 244–45.
162
Mary Lovell, Cast No Shadow: The Life of the American Spy Who Changed the Course of World War II, 1st ed.
(Pantheon, 1992), 2–14.
 59

coupled with her intellect and unwavering bravery made Pack a triple threat that did not go

unnoticed by officials in the OSS. Pack’s first “mission,” she traveled across a war torn Spain in

search of her husband, was one she alone initiated and authorized. In 1935, she and her driver

set out to find Arthur Pack (said husband) and were detained by Republican guards who

interrogated and placed her in a cell for hours until she was able to “befriend” an inmate who

was able to secure her release. Viewing this incident as a minor delay, Pack continued on to San

Sebastian in search of information or a confirmation of her husband’s death. She traveled

another two days before being taken in for questioning again. This time Pack was able to

persuade the commander to give her a one-day pass as well as an armed escort. Arthur Pack was

found alive and in the company of other US ambassadors who recognized what an asset

Elizabeth Pack might be to the nation. They gave her an envelope containing secret information

for her to deliver to the Foreign Office. After successfully delivering it, she set out on her next

self-approved mission.

Pack’s next adventure would be to help five Franco supporters to join other rebel forces

in Fuenterrabia. Pack sympathized with the plight of the Spanish revolutionaries, despite being

chastised for her too obvious support of the Nationalist cause. Many of her friends were Spanish

Franco supporters and Pack adamantly disagreed with the Republican government’s execution of

church officials. 163 To accomplish the mission, Pack needed to find a way to distract her armed

escorts. To accomplish this, she set out to ply them with drinks until they were too intoxicated to

care about the five men she had loaded into their vehicle. In their drunken state, her escorts did

not seem to mind the extra passengers and they all drove off together. She dropped the five men

off in the mountains and returned to her hotel before her husband noticed she had gone. 164

163
Ibid., 47–48.
164
Ibid., 42–45.
 60

Before Pack began working for the OSS in 1942, she had already contacted the British to

offer them her services as an agent. She worked as a covert agent for the British Security

Coordination (BSC), the SOE’s British intelligence agency in the United States, performing

several information seeking missions for the agency where her “contribution was enormous and

the information she provided was extra-ordinary” according to Marion de Chastellaine, Pack’s

former go-between in the SOE. 165

Pack’s most dangerous mission while under the command of the OSS could have resulted

in major international conflicts if she failed. Donovan and the BSC decided that, in a joint effort,

they would infiltrate the embassies of several neutral nations in order to steal their military

codebooks. According to a Presidential Directive, the OSS was given only a limited amount of

power concerning foreign embassies, making this mission even more dangerous than most. If an

agent were caught in the embassy, the results could be “catastrophic” for both the agents and the

countries they were working for. 166 It appeared that the rewards outweighed the risks, and Pack

was contacted to be a part of that mission in March 1942.

Colonel Ellery Huntington of the OSS outlined a plan where she and her partner Charles

Brousse, who worked at the French embassy and with whom she became intimately involved

(originally to obtain information from him), would break into the safe in the navel attaché’s

office. Over the previous year, Pack had cunningly earned the trust of Brousse and he supplied

her with information regarding the embassy’s cable traffic on a daily basis. She was also able to

convince him to help her with this mission. Somehow, the two agents needed to get into the

office and remove two codebooks, hand them through the window to the OSS to photograph and

then wait for the books to be returned to them, at which point she would return them to the safe,

165
Ibid., 142-43.
166
Ibid., 208; McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies, 24.
 61

all within a few hours. The two devised a plan where Brousse would “fabricate” a story to the

night security guard at the embassy about wanting to spend time with his mistress without his

wife’s knowledge. Relying on the guard’s sympathy for his situation and a hefty bribe, he asked

the guard to leave them alone for a while so they could “be together.” This plan worked and for

weeks, Pack and Brousse routinely met at the embassy and gained the trust of the guard and his

dog, allowing them to implement their actual plans in mid-June 1942. 167

On June 19, the couple arrived at the embassy to “celebrate an anniversary” and asked the

guard to have a drink with them. His glass of champagne contained a dose of medication that

Pack had secretly slipped in to it when he was not looking, to render him unconscious so they

would not be disturbed in their attempts to open the safe and remove the codebooks. The dog

also received the sedative in his water dish. Once both the dog and guard were asleep, Pack and

Brousse let their safe cracker in and he opened the locked naval officer’s door and began

working on the safe. Over four hours later, the safe was finally open, but by then it was too late

to finish their job. They were forced to write down the safe’s code and leave empty handed. 168

Two days later, the couple was back at the embassy for another attempt at retrieving the

codes. Unfortunately, Pack was unable to open the safe even with the combination she had

written on a piece of paper and brought with her. They were forced to leave and try again

another day. In the meantime, the original safecracker who had accompanied them to the

embassy taught Pack how to quickly open the safe. With her newfound skill, Pack and Brousse

met one last time at the embassy for their “final evening together.” To their surprise, there was

no guard on duty, a detail that greatly concerned Pack; it seemed too easy and she feared they

had been discovered and were walking into a trap. The two went about their normal routine until

167
McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies, 27.
168
Ibid., 28.
 62

Pack, to Brousse’s surprise, began undressing. She ordered him to do the same, explaining that

if the guard did appear, their cover would not be blown. Her instincts were right on point, and as

Pack stood there wearing nothing but a string of pearls and Brousse attempted to undress the

guard burst through the door to find them. Embarrassed, the guard apologized and exited the

room as quickly as he could. Pack went to work immediately on opening the safe, dressed only

in a slip in case the guard returned. She opened the safe, removed the books and passed them out

the window to the OSS agent waiting outside. She and Brousse waited several hours for the

books to be returned and when they were securely back in the safe the couple left. 169 Pack’s use

of her sexuality at that moment, as a creative problem-solving technique, was proof of her quick

thinking and of her constant awareness of her surroundings. Pack knew if they had been caught,

their mission would not only have failed, but she also would have been responsible for putting

many other agents at risk. She was willing to do whatever it took in order to obtain the

information that was so desperately needed by the OSS.

The success of this mission fostered the confidence of the OSS in both of the new agents

and led to another mission, this time in France. Pack would act as Brousse and his wife’s

daughter and the two would become part of an ongoing OSS operation called BANANA. Their

job would be to gather information from Spain and report it to Donovan. This mission however,

never came to fruition because Operation TOURCH had begun and the Vichy interned American

diplomats as a result. This meant that any possibility of Pack and Brousse being infiltrated into

France would have to be postponed indefinitely. 170 Despite this, Pack continued to supply the

OSS with information until the war ended in 1945. When asked about the means by which she

obtained much of this information, as it was sexual in nature, she stated that she was not

169
Lovell, Cast No Shadow, 228–29.
170
Ibid., 239–57.
 63

ashamed. She also remarked that “ my superiors told me that the results of my work saved

thousands of British and American lives….It involved me in situations from which 'respectable'

women draw back–but mine was total commitment. Wars are not won by respectable

methods.” 171 Pack knew what it took to obtain information and used every tool she had available

to do so. Conventional methods of warfare alone were not going to win WWII for the allies, and

women, like Pack, had to use other means.

The final two women featured in this study used unconventional methods as well.

Elizabeth McIntosh (MacDonald) and Barbara Lauwres worked for the OSS too, only their work

placed them behind the scenes and not on the front lines. Both McIntosh and Lauwers worked

for the MO branch of the OSS where they created “black propaganda” to bring down the morale

of the enemy soldiers and civilians in an attempt to procure a victory for the Ally forces.

McIntosh, before being recruited by the OSS and stationed in India, lived in Hawaii as a

journalist who happened to be fluent in Japanese. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, McIntosh

was sent to India to rewrite intercepted mail from Japanese soldiers to their families. Her job

was to make the families believe that their sons who were off fighting were losing the battle

against the Americans. McIntosh was later transferred to the OSS office in China were she

worked on a project that intercepted an Imperial Order describing the terms of Japan’s surrender.

They rewrote the order and distributed it to Japanese soldiers, effectively convincing them of its

authenticity. 172 After the war, McIntosh went on to write several books about her time in the

171
“Amy Elizabeth Thorpe: WWII’s Mata Hari,” Weider History Group: Historynet.com, June 12, 2006,
http://www.historynet.com/amy-elizabeth-thorpe-wwiis-mata-hari.htm/3.
172
“National Women’s History Museum Spies Exhibition,” National Women’s History Museum Presents
Clandestine Women: Spies in American History, 2007, http://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/spies/14.htm.
 64

OSS, and in 1959, she began working in Operations for the CIA, the organization that was

created shortly after the OSS disbanded in 1946,until she retired in 1973. 173

For her part, Lauwers, who spoke flawless German, worked at the OSS headquarters in

Rome. While there, she was part of the team that was responsible for creating false passports,

visas, diplomas and other documents for secret agents in the field. However, her greatest

accomplishment while part of the OSS was the part she played in Operation SAUERKRAUT.

For this operation, Lauwers trained and accompanied a team of German prisoners who would be

placed behind enemy lines and would spread “black” propaganda in nearby occupied Italian

villages. Every agent who was deployed with her returned safely and had obtained valuable

information about the German military and its movements. 174

Lauwers also helped to create the "League of Lonely War Women," another “black

propaganda” effort that airdropped letters to German soldiers in the field. The letters,

supposedly written by women back home, suggested that they were seeking sex and relationships

with soldiers. The mission’s purpose was to bring down German soldier’s morale by making

them believe their wives and girlfriends were being unfaithful while they were off fighting the

war. Because of the success of missions headed by her, Lauwers was given the authority to

conduct another in Italy that would force Czechoslovakian and Slovakian soldiers to end their

support of the Germans. The results showed over 600 Czechoslovak soldiers defecting from the

Italian frontline and withdrawing their support for the Germans. The leaflets that Lauwers

created were found in the jacket pockets of more than 600 soldiers who crossed the battle lines.

For her efforts, Lauwers was awarded the Bronze Star. 175

173
McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies, 241.
174
Ibid., 60; “World War II.”
175
“World War II”; McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies, 65–66.
 65

These women, some of whom risked their lives at the hands of the enemy, served

America under extreme secrecy. If the American public had been aware of the dangerous

missions women were being used, in the backlash the United States government would have

experienced would have been immense. In 1942, many Americans were likely not prepared to

make the necessary changed to their socially constructed ideas of gender, so the mere thought of

a woman using a weapon, or worse yet, her body as a weapon against the Axis powers would

have been met with anger and protest. Therefore, the only way to avoid such conflicts was to

create those positions in secret. Years later as the histories about these women began being

published and circulated, the nation was surprised and fascinated with their stories. The general

public found it difficult to believe that women acted as secret agents and that a few of the women

actually killed enemy soldiers. Perhaps this reaction explains why most of the existing literature

about these women placed so much focus on their sexuality. The reaction of the public,

supported by their socially constructed ideas of women, forced the authors to portray the women

agents as sweet, fragile, incapable of harm, or worst, sex-crazed women on the prowl. The idea

that these missions could not have been performed without women using their sexuality to trick

men into giving them the information sought after by the OSS was much easier to accept by

Americans than the idea that these women chose to use their sexuality as a tool.

The previous chapters feature brave and intelligent women who put their lives at risk just

to do their part for the war effort. The following chapter will illustrate how the women in both

the SOE and the OSS paved the way for women in their respective countries to obtain higher

positions in and out of the military.

 66

CHAPTER FOUR

WOMEN, WORKFORCE,

AND WAR

That most of the female spies associated with the OSS were actually employed by the

SOE serves as evidence that, comparatively, the women employed by the OSS were less likely to

be used as clandestine agents. Officials within the United States government feared the public

outrage and political backlash that accompanied allowing women to use weapons or to occupy

positions behind enemy lines. The socially constructed ideas pertaining to which occupations

women could hold also dictated the United States’ policy on women in the military. However, in

Great Britain, the necessity to fill many positions left by men fighting on the frontline forced the

SOE to employ women as secret operatives much sooner. Once the decision to use women in

these positions became a regular practice, women were increasingly afforded many of the same

rights as their male counterparts. Nevertheless, women in both nations faced sexism and

discrimination, whatever their position, as they entered the workforce and took on

responsibilities and occupations once held by the men in each country.

Before the war began, women in both Great Britain and the United States primarily took

care of their homes and children. While women in Great Britain’s workforce were nearly five

million strong prior to the war, most did not expect to continue their employment once they

married. As the war progressed however, women found themselves making up one third of the

total employed persons. 176 Between 1940 and 1950 in the United States, women made up

approximately 10-20% of the work force compared to the 2-5% they represented between 1890

176
Harris, “BBC - History - British History in Depth.” See also Margaret Walsh, “Womanpower: The Transforming
of the Labour Force in the UK and the USA Since 1945,” ReFRESH - Recent Findings of Research in Economics &
Social History 30, no. Summer 2001: 1–4, accessed December 2, 2012,
http://www.ehs.org.uk/ehs/refresh/assets/Walsh30a.pdf. for information on employment statistics for Great Britain.
 67

and 1940. 177 Women quickly replaced men in factories, service industries, offices, and the

armed forces. The need for men on the battlefield facilitated women to enter into employment

previously forbidden to them. By 1941, with the enactment of the National Service Act No. 2

(Great Britain), women aged 20-30 were conscripted into occupations vital to their country’s

need. By 1943, that number rose to almost 90% of single women and 80% of married women

who were working outside of their homes in some capacity for the war effort. 178 Women found

employment in manufacturing as well as in civil defense areas such as land armies that employed

women in the agricultural sector. They worked on lands previously farmed by men, who left for

military service, as a means to increase food production during the war. Many women also

found employment in Air Raid Precautions (ARP) where they watched for enemy aircraft and

warned civilians of approaching dangers, as well as worked in fire and rescue services.

Eventually, women-only auxiliary branches of the armed forces were created and women

became code breakers, secretaries, telephone operators and filled non-essential positions so the

men could be transferred to the frontlines.179

SOCIETY AND WOMEN – HOW WOMEN WERE TREATED IN THE WORKFORCE

For women in Great Britain the transition into the workforce began during World War I

when the need to relieve men from their prewar jobs became essential. Due to the enormous

demand for men in the armed forces, women volunteered in order to hold positions for the men

as they went off to fight in the war. As the men returned, women relinquished their positions and

returned to caring for their homes. Then, as WWII loomed over Great Britain, women once

again entered the workforce to fill vacancies left by soldiers who were called up for duty. The

177
Claudia D. Goldin, “The Role of World War II in the Rise of Women’s Employment,” The American Economic
Review 81, no. 4 (1991): 742, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2006640.
178
Harris, “BBC - History - British History in Depth.”
179
Ibid.
 68

response by men not on active duty during this time was less than favorable toward the women.

Even as the need for workers increased, women met discrimination in almost every field of

employment. According to Connelly, the long hours and low wages women received, coupled

with the “intolerable attitudes” from men, made it increasingly difficult to recruit women into

necessary factory jobs. 180 The author contends that the men who remained at home refused to

adjust to the increasing number of women in the workplace or to accommodate their increased

responsibilities both inside and out of the home. 181

The increased occupational stresses accompanied by social stresses placed on women

caused many more problems for them. Rumors of “good-time gals” who would have sex with

anyone in uniform and the increased number of reported sexually transmitted diseases only

furthered the negative social attitudes many had about women working outside the home. One

nationally syndicated column, Capitol Stuff, falsely reported that women in the WAAC were

being issued condoms and other contraceptives while stationed abroad, an untrue rumor meant to

blame those “seductive women” for increases in venereal disease cases among American soldiers

stationed overseas. 182 The new freedoms women found in procuring their own income

(sometimes far from home), the exposure to new and “exotic” foreigners and a growing fear of

what the future might bring, fostered a sentiment of “do as you please for tomorrow you may

die,” that placed women in constant conflict with the old and new ideas of femininity. 183

Women wrestled with their traditional values and their desires for social and financial

independence. However, men and women alike were expected to maintain their socially
180
Mark Connelly, “Working, Queueing and Worrying: British Women and the Home Front, 1939-1945,” in Women
at War: The Women in World War II, at Home, at Work, on the Front Line (Barnsley, South Yorkshire, Great
Britain: Readers Digest, 2012), 54.
181
Ibid., 55.
182
Yellin, Our Mothers’ War, 130–32.
183
Connelly, “Working, Queueing and Worrying: British Women and the Home Front, 1939-1945,” 56–59. For
more on rumors that were spread about women during the war see Gruhzit-Hoyt, They Also Served; Yellin, Our
Mothers’ War.
 69

constructed and defined roles of masculinity and femininity. Gender roles, argued Graham

Dawson, shifted throughout the war. The result of which, he states, did not have a lasting effect

because men and their attitudes regarding the social positions of women did not change after the

war. 184

There are striking similarities between the social norms in Great Britain with those in the

United States during the 1940s. As more women entered the workforce, stories abounded of the

harsh treatment they suffered from men and even from other women. Constance Bowman Reid

discusses at length the social ramifications of the simple act of wearing slacks or overalls had in

the 1940s on the newly employed women. The treatment Reid received when she worked in a

bomber factory during the war ranged from derogatory comments to unwanted sexual advances

from men and sporadic disrespect and rudeness from fellow women. 185 Women crossing over

the socially constructed line of how one should act and/or what it meant to be the ideal woman

suffered emotional and sometimes physical abuse for their work for the government. Reid and

other women who worked in wartime roles noted that the behaviors of people who knew them

changed and they “acted as if they didn’t [know them],” as well as “people who didn’t know

[them] whistled as if they did,” just based on the clothing they wore. 186 Condescending men and

women eschewed those women who chose to (or were forced to for economic survival) work in

factories instead of offices because they were suddenly unfeminine. Ironically, these women

suffered unwanted sexual attention as well. Reid recalled that “men grabbed [them] and

184
Connelly, “Working, Queueing and Worrying: British Women and the Home Front, 1939-1945,” 59.
185
Constance Bowman Reid, Slacks and Calluses: Our Summer in a Bomber Factory (Smithsonian Books, 2004),
67–74.
186
Ibid.
 70

followed [them] and whistled at [them]. They called [them] ‘Sister’ in a most un-brotherly way

and ‘Baby’ in a most un-fatherly way.” 187

These women struggled with their own individuality and ideas of femininity too. Taking

on a “man’s job” and trying to maintain their ideas of beauty, Sandra Gilbert affirms, “the ‘girls’

[were] declining to join the masculine realm of regulations and uniforms ruled by the

bureaucratically inclined foremen, affirming instead a more joyous and mischievous regimen of

feminine misrule.” 188 Women enjoyed their recently acquired freedoms and intended to hold on

to them as well as their femininity; to them, it seemed, the two were not mutually exclusive.

However, social norms were slow to change, and while women experienced a new sense of

autonomy and eventually greater equality in the workplace, they rarely saw increases in their

salaries or received promotions, which held them in subordinate positions to men.

Financially, women continued to endure discrepancies as well. The National War Labor

Board in the United States declared in 1942 that women should receive equal pay for doing the

same work as men. According to an article in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, “the

Board has consistently endeavored to abolish the wage differential between male and female

employees...a policy providing that "the company shall pay equal pay for equal work," regardless

of whether the employees were male or female. This principle has been reiterated time and again

in varying shades of language.” Many business owners ignored it because the NWLB’s focus

was on the stabilization of wages nationwide and the avoidance of labor strikes during the war

and not on the issue of equal pay for men and women. 189 In 1944, a woman working in

manufacturing was averaging about $31 per week compared to a man performing the same job,

187
Ibid., 67–69.
188
Ibid., xi.
189
R. H., “The National War Labor Board: The Evolution of a National Wage Policy,” University of Pennsylvania
Law Review and American Law Register 91, no. 4 (December 1942): 347, http://0-
www.jstor.org.maurice.bgsu.edu/stable/pdfplus/3309286.pdf?acceptTC=true.
 71

who brought home $55 per week. Opportunities for advancement were also limited for women

as few received promotions from their entry-level positions.190

Part of the explanation for this could be their children. Men and women alike expressed

concerns about who would care for the children while their mothers were at work. These

gendered social expectations continued to burden the working woman. Even as women

shouldered more of the home front wartime responsibilities outside of the home, men were

unlikely to increase their contributions to household duties. 191 Women, expected to work long

hours for little pay in factories, were also expected to maintain clean, healthy and happy homes

at the same time. Women with children and families often missed work in order to care for

them, as there was no one else to fill in for her at home during her shifts in the factory.

“Women’s work,” as household chores were considered by most, still needed to be completed

even if women worked late hours. Society needed to change. It did not take policymakers long

to recognize that existing social norms interfered with industrial productivity and to

accommodate working women by offering later store hours, shorter work days and daycare

centers. In 1942, the United States Congress passed the Lanham Act that provided government

funds for daycare centers, and by 1945, 3,102 such facilities opened. In Great Britain, women

faced the same issues and the government responded in much the same way as their American

allies by creating childcare facilities and greater flexibility regarding the number of hours a

woman spent at work. 192 That was a start, but many more adjustments needed to be made in the

workplace and in social norms before real changes could be measured. 193

190
Yellin, Our Mothers’ War, 64–65.
191
Connelly, “Working, Queueing and Worrying: British Women and the Home Front, 1939-1945,” 59.
192
Harris, “BBC - History - British History in Depth.”
193
Yellin, Our Mothers’ War, 59–60.
 72

In both countries, the governments set forth agendas that attempted to counter the

negative reactions women received from men in the workplace. The British passed several laws

regarding women’s employment. By the end of the war, all women between the ages of 18-40

were eligible for employment in any capacity, regardless of their marital status. 194 In the United

States, the government encouraged women to join the war effort by replacing men in essential

civilian jobs, allowing the men to join the armed forces. Propaganda posters were displayed

nationwide depicting pretty, young women with slogans like “Soldiers Without Guns,” “Free a

Man to Fight,” and others that featured Rosie the Riveter, the “ideal single woman war

worker.” 195 President Roosevelt also addressed the nation and encouraged Americans to accept

women in these new positions, stating that in some communities “employers dislike to hire

women. In others they are reluctant to hire Negroes. We can no longer afford to indulge such

prejudice.” 196 Even though more women became employed during the war years than ever

before, little seemed to have changed for women once the war was over. Of the millions of

women in both countries who volunteered or were conscripted to work in factories, service or

other wartime employment, less than half remained in the workforce after the war. 197

WOMEN ENTER THE ARMED FORCES

Not long after both Great Britain and the United States entered the war, the governments

began to see an increase in their need for soldiers. Before the war began, able-bodied men

occupied non-combat positions in the armed forces and were rapidly becoming necessary on the

front lines. As early as 1907, the British had enlisted women to assist men on the front line. The
194
Celia Lee and Paul Strong, Women In War: From Home Front to Front Line (Pen and Sword, 2012), 53. The
National Service Act 1941, Registration of Employment Order 1941, Employment of Women Order 1942 allowed
women to be conscripted in Great Britain.
195
Yellin, Our Mothers’ War, 38, 43.
196
Ibid., 39.
197
Goldin, “The Role of World War II in the Rise of Women’s Employment,” 755; Pidgeon, Changes in Women’s
Employment During the War; Walsh, “Womanpower:The Transforming of the Labour Force in the UK and the USA
Since 1945,” 1.
 73

First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) women rode onto the battlefield to pick up and carry away

wounded men to waiting doctors. Women also belonged to the Women’s Emergency Corps, the

Women’s League, and the Women’s Defense Relief Corps by the end of World War I. In 1917,

these groups combined to become part of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) and

then the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) in 1938, a group whose purpose was to replace men

in non-combat positions so the men could move to the frontlines where they were desperately

needed. 198 The ATS employed women as chauffeurs, clerks, telephone operators, cooks and

instructors in order to transfer the men who held some of those positions into combat. The

Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS), also created in 1917, was re-commissioned in 1939 for

the same purpose. In April 1918, the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) began offering

women positions as clerks, drivers, cooks and shopkeepers and continued the WAAF’s work

during WWII. 199

In the United States, there is evidence that women have served in every war since the

American Revolution, usually as nurses. Congress did recognize one women soldier, Deborah

Sampson Gannett, from that war and also awarded her husband a widow’s pension. 200 World

War II, however, called for a vast number of women to serve in various capacities for the armed

forces, beginning with the Army in 1942. After months of debating and deliberating,

Representative Edith Nourse Rogers introduced House Bill 4906 to create a “Women's Army

Auxiliary Corps for Service with the Army of the United States." The Director of the Army

Nurse Corps, Maj. Julia Flikke, protested allowing women to join the WAAC, citing that, "It is

198
Lee and Strong, Women In War, 77.
199
FamilyRecords gov uk Consortium, “FamilyRecords.gov.uk | Focus on... Women in Uniform | Women in World
War II - Introduction,” FamilyRecords.gov.uk Consortium, accessed December 18, 2012,
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/womeninuniform/wwii_intro.htm.
200
Mattie Treadwell E., The Women’s Army Corps Special Studies, United States Army In World War II
(Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, First Printed 1954 1991), 3, Library of Congress,
http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/Wac/index.htm.
 74

[her] opinion that the disadvantages outweigh the advantages . . . complications would arise

between that organization and other existing organizations." Her concern was that "this

organization necessarily would be composed largely of married women who would find it

difficult to comply with regulations because of home ties, and would always need special

consideration and no doubt there would be many who would object to regimentation." 201

Essentially, Major Flikke opposed allowing women to enter an auxiliary branch of the Army

because it conflicted with what was considered acceptable “women’s work.”

Despite the many objections to the WAAC, in May of that year, the Women’s Army

Auxiliary Corps was formed with the expressed purpose of "making available to the national

defense the knowledge, skill, and special training of the women of the nation" and began

recruiting women to fill open positions as “typists, hygienists, chauffeurs, cooks, bakers,

accountants and telegraphers.” 202 Not long after the WAAC’s approval, the Navy presented a

request for its own women’s only branch, and in July of 1942, the Women Accepted for

Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) was established along with the US Marine Corps

Women’s Reserve, the only group to give women full acceptance in the service from its

inception. The WAAC became the Women’s Army Corp in September 1943 and women gained

full military status. The SPARS of the US Coast Guard began enlisting women in November

1942, and the Air Force followed in 1943 by adding the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots

(WASP). 203 Combined, the women’s only branches boasted nearly 400,000 enlisted women who

served in every theater of the war. 204

201
Ibid., 17–18.
202
“Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps,” n.d., Charlotte D. Mansfield, The Institute on World War II and the Human
Experience; Treadwell, THE WOMEN’S ARMY CORPS, 19.
203
Gruhzit-Hoyt, They Also Served, 62, 102, 125, 139, 150.
204
“Women In Military Service For America Memorial,” History & Collections, accessed December 19, 2012,
http://www.womensmemorial.org/H&C/History/wwii.html.
 75

DISCRIMINATION IN THE MILITARY

As noted earlier, women employed in civilian war efforts suffered a significant amount of

social discrimination. Those who joined the women’s auxiliary branches of each country faced

their own unique challenges inside the military in addition to the similar social treatment all

working women received. Women enlisted in the British FANYs, ATS, WRNS and the WAAF,

as well as women in the American branches of the WAC, WAVES, SPAR, Marines and WASP,

were subjected to public ridicule that suggested these women were neglecting their duties at

home and that their involvement in the armed forces would leave the next generation morally

and socially bankrupt. Rumors spread rapidly about the WAAC women being immoral

prostitutes or that they became pregnant by “servicing” the male troops. Even more rampant

were the rumors that the women spread venereal diseases. All of these rumors suggested, as

Leisa Meyer states, that the only use women had to the military was sexual in nature. The

rumors were baseless; in fact, the WAAC’s STD rates were close to nonexistent, and the rate of

pregnancy among unmarried WAACs was 1/5 the rate of unmarried civilian women. Other

women in the WAC found themselves “locked in barbed wire compounds and only able to leave

with armed guard escorts” while stationed in the Pacific. 205 In a moralistic and perhaps

paternalistic attempt to protect the virtues of their women, the government further restricted their

freedoms.

Women faced especially harsh discrimination from the enlisted men. One ATA pilot

recalled her experience with her male co-pilot, “one man who refused to fly with me, because he

said he wasn't going to be flown by a woman. I remember being absolutely furious and having to

sit in the plane while he took charge.” Men in both countries were frequently unwilling to
205
Yellin, Our Mothers’ War, 114, 128, 130–31.
 76

relinquish their authority over women. There was also a significant amount of racism in all

branches of the armed forces. In the United States, all military branches segregated people not

only by sex but also by color. In Great Britain during WWII, Stuart Foster notes, “Black men

were not even permitted to lie alongside the white corpses of their fellow men,” and he quotes

historian Christopher Somerville’s observations that “some were issued with spears and clubs,

rather than rifles and grenades.” Foster also points out that the British army had no black

officers and that the War Office did not want African troops to serve in Europe but did allow

them to serve in other parts of the world. 206 Nowhere in his report, or any other sources about

women during WWII, are African women who served in the British military specifically

addressed, which suggests that they were not relevant enough to the war effort for the authors to

mention.

THE CREATION OF THE SOE AND OSS

World War II presented new challenges for Great Britain and the United States. The

technological strides made since the last war along with the challenge of defeating the Axis

powers proved taxing on both counties. It did not take either government long to realize that this

war required the use of different strategies than any they had employed before. Therefore, both

nations set out to create agencies whose sole purpose was to fight the Nazis and the Japanese

without detection.

Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister during WWII, declared, “a new organization

shall be established forthwith to co-ordinate all action, by way of subversion and sabotage,

against the enemy overseas…This organization will be known as the Special Operations

206
Stuart Foster, “The British Empire and Commonwealth in World War II: Selection and Omission in English
History Textbooks,” 12, accessed December 19, 2012,
http://www.blackhistory4schools.com/articles/empire%20in%20ww2.pdf.
 77

Executive,” and ordered its director, Hugh Dalton, to “set Europe ablaze.” 207 Franklin D.

Roosevelt, President of the United States during the war, authorized the creation of the Office of

Strategic Services, under the direction of William Donovan, in 1942. His order read: “All

measures will be taken to enforce our will upon the enemy by means other than military action,

as may be applied in support of actual or planned military operations; or in furtherance of the

war effort; unorthodox warfare, guerrilla activities behind enemy lines; contact with resistance

groups; subversion, sabotage and unorthodox or ‘black’ psychological warfare.” 208 Both

agencies, supplied with a seemingly endless supply of funds and executive support, recruited and

trained many of the brightest, affluent, and well-connected members of society. 209

Among the recruits from both the SOE and the OSS were women selected as much for

their connections as their abilities. Many of the recruits possessed a special skill, like fluency in

a foreign language that made them an asset to the agencies. The women were expected to be

equally intelligent and brave. 210 Most women became secretaries, telephone operators, file

clerks and code breakers. However, some women did work in the field as saboteurs and spies. 211

What set these agencies apart from other military branches was their willingness to hire and

promote women.

The SOE, far more often than the OSS, trained women with the same skill sets the men

received. SOE agents learned survival skills, how to use explosives, and parachuting as well as

code breaking, how to transmit and receive messages and counter-espionage techniques like the

207
Foot, SOE in France; an Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940-1944,
8, 11.
208
McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies, 6.
209
Foot, SOE in France; an Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940-1944;
Smith, OSS. Aforementioned monographs detail both agencies recruiting and training techniques.
210
Foot, SOE in France; an Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940-1944,
51–53; Foot, S.O.E., 1940-46, 47; McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies, 6.
211
McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies, 12–13; Foot, S.O.E., 1940-46, 47.
 78

use of propaganda. 212 The SOE was also willing to allow women to work from behind enemy

lines, most often as couriers or wireless operators, but a select few were responsible for spying

and for setting explosives. Women like Australian-born Nancy Wake, Violette Szabo, and the

American Virginia Hall (who worked for both the SOE and then the OSS), can be credited for

their share of damage to the Nazi endeavors in France. Wake, known as the “White Mouse” by

the Gestapo, parachuted into France, sent messages back to London requesting weapons for 17

Maquis groups, met the airdrops to collect supplies, and led her group in a fierce shooting match

in order to rescue two captured Americans. 213

Szabo, while a courier in France, along with a Maquis member, was involved in a

roadside gunfight with German soldiers. As she attempted to flee from the area, Szabo may have

injured her ankle forcing her to stop running. She insisted that her male partner continue without

her as she supplied him with cover until her capture by the Germans. While under arrest, she

may have been tortured by the guards but refused to disclose any information about her identity

or the others with whom she was in contact. Her failure to cooperate with the Germans resulted

in her death in the infamous Ravensbrück Concentration Camp in 1944. 214

While working for the SOE, Virginia Hall was responsible for setting up her own safe

house for fellow agents; she also carried messages from one circuit to another and she convinced

local police to release prisoners. 215 Her greatest contribution to the SOE, however, was the field

intelligence she obtained. 216 Hall worked as a “travel agent” for F Section and held the title of

212
Foot, SOE in France; an Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940-1944,
53–58.
213
Escott, Heroines of SOE, 188.
214
Ottaway, Violette Szabo, 106–110; Escott, Heroines of SOE, 172–75; Binney, The Women Who Lived for
Danger, 235–38; O’Connor, Women of RAF Tempsford: Churchill’s Agents of Wartime Resistance, 190; Foot, SOE
in France; an Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940-1944, 409.
215
Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 111.
216
Foot, SOE in France, 101, 146, 161, 172–9, 193–7, 200–3, 211–23, 258, 372.
 79

organizer for the HECKLER circuit, an almost unheard-of accomplishment for a woman. 217 Hall

also taught herself Morse code so she could be her own wireless transmitter in the event that she

was no longer of use anymore as a courier. 218

Many of the duties performed by the women for the SOE were previously unimaginable

for women to achieve prior to the war. With the onset of WWII, the British government

understood the need for new ways of fighting that included women in combat positions, even if it

was in secret. The female agents of the SOE bravely undertook the tasks required of them and

completed missions that had previously restricted the use of women. In doing so, these women

commanded and earned the respect of their male colleagues and, once their stories became

known after the war, that of the rest of the world.

Like their British allies, the women of the OSS were highly trained agents. However,

most women did not receive the same training as male agents in the United States. Instead,

women received training for positions that kept them in secure office settings. Even in the cases

of those women who worked in Special Operations (spies), Operational Groups (foreign

language specialists and saboteurs), and the Maritime Units (underwater explosive experts), the

majority of them spent most of their time behind a desk. A few women like Virginia Hall, Amy

Thorpe Pack, and Barbara Lauwers found themselves behind enemy lines working as agents.

While working for the OSS, Virginia Hall relayed messages to the OSS through the

SOE. 219 She also made contact with French Resistance operatives and established a network for

the OSS. Hall singlehandedly organized drops and distributed goods to the same groups that

217
Ibid., 211.
218
Ibid., 372.
219
Escott, Heroines of SOE, 37. The agencies worked closely throughout the war and many SOE agents were
employed by the OSS (officially or unofficially).
 80

were opposed to helping her because they refused to take orders from a woman. 220 Hall was a

master of disguise and impersonated a French peasant woman. She dyed her hair gray, used

padding under her rustic clothing and shuffled, as an old woman would have, when she walked.

Hall escaped detection by the Germans, who by this time were actively searching for her, and she

transmitted many of the wireless messages that assisted the Allies in planning the D-Day

attacks. 221 Hall’s report to OSS listed her teams’ accomplishments as “destroying four bridges,

derailing freight trains, sever[ing] a key rail line in multiple places and down[ing] telephone

lines.” She also armed and trained three groups of French resisters that were responsible for the

deaths of at least 150 German soldiers and the capture of 500 more. 222

Amy Thorpe Pack, code named Cynthia, procured navel codes for the OSS that led to the

Allies concurring North Africa. She planned a mission to obtain the codes by tricking the

security guard on duty that she and her “lover” wanted privacy. This afforded her enough time

to sneak the OSS safecracker in through a window and open the safe. Thereafter, Pack took the

code books to the OSS photo team so they could take pictures and then returned them to the safe

unnoticed. 223

Barbara Lauwers, working for the Morale Operations (MO) unit of the OSS, helped lead

Operation SAUERKRAUT, a mission whereby German POW selected and trained by Lauwers

would infiltrate German held territories and distribute propaganda that would decrease German

morale. The only woman involved, Lauwers, was also credited with the creation of the “League

of Lonely War Women,” a fake group of German women looking for love. The purpose of the

“League” was to make German soldiers believe that their wives and girlfriends were searching

220
Ibid., 38.
221
O’Connor, Women of RAF Tempsford: Churchill’s Agents of Wartime Resistance, 177.
222
Ibid., 178.
223
McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies, 23–32.
 81

for new foreign men in their absence. This tactic was so successful at deflating German morale

that the Washington Post ran a story about it in 1944. Then, in April 1945, Lauwers team was

responsible for distributing “black” propaganda that resulted in 600 Czechoslovakian troops who

were aiding German soldiers to defect to Italy. 224

Even if the female agents of the OSS were not involved with the war behind enemy lines,

their top secret efforts greatly affected the outcome of the war. Hall and Pack offered services

that directly placed them in danger of being captured by the Germans, yet they bravely

preformed their duties. Women agents like Hall, Pack, and Lauwers gained respect from the

men in the OSS by working competently and repeatedly completing their assigned missions

successfully. They also gained the admiration of many more Americans by the end of the war,

and each received commendations from the United States government.

POLICIES RELATED TO WOMEN IN THE MILITARY

The concept of a woman remaining a housewife and mother who cooked, cleaned,

shopped, and cared for the children while her husband went off to work in order to

singlehandedly support his family may seem antiquated today. However, for the majority of

women prior to the 1940s, working outside of the home was only acceptable if they were young,

unmarried (but looking for a husband), or from an underprivileged family where their income

was necessary for survival. Every aspect of their lives, from what was acceptable for them to

wear to their morality and their status in public, was dictated to women by society. In both Great

Britain and the United States, the idea that a “woman’s place was in the home” continued to limit

the availability of higher education and employment for women. Nevertheless, necessity proved

to be the catalyst for social and economic opportunities for women in the late 1930s.

224
Ibid., 61–67.
 82

As both countries inched closer to becoming involved in WWII, they began to reassess

the social constraints placed on women. The need for men in the armed forces outweighed the

desire to keep women “in their place.” Once the war began, each country passed legislation

allowing (or insisting, in the case of Great Britain) women to work outside of the home and

eventually in auxiliary branches of the armed forces. 225 The number of women employed in

1944 in the United States reached nearly 17 million, and in Great Britain, “almost 90 per cent of

single women and 80 per cent of married women were employed in essential work for the war

effort.” 226

By 1942, every branch of the military in both nations employed women in one capacity

or another. From their new occupations, women obtained a unique sense of freedom that, once

the war was over, would be difficult to give up. As Olga Gruhzit-Hoyt pointed out, “women

learned a sense of self-esteem and an independence that would help push the so-called women’s

liberation movement into overt action.” Women finally had the opportunity to test their abilities

in the workforce and discovered that despite the initial negative responses from men (and

oftentimes other women) that they were capable of bringing about change. 227 The most tangible

results were in the military sphere, as both nations incorporated the auxiliary groups into the

male branches.

New positions in the military opened up for women as did advancement opportunities.

By 1970 the Army appointed the first women General Officer, and in 1973, the Air Force had its

first Major General. Over the next twenty years, more combat positions became available to

225
Harris, “BBC - History - British History in Depth”; Walsh, “Womanpower: The Transforming of the Labour
Force in the UK and the USA Since 1945.”
226
Harris, “BBC - History - British History in Depth.”
227
Gruhzit-Hoyt, They Also Served, xvii.
 83

women as laws that prohibited them from serving were repealed. 228 Because of the struggles

faced by women during WWII, women in the United States, as well as in Great Britain, are able

to join the armed services today.

According to David Hoghton-Carter, United Kingdom Defense Forum Research

Associate, in 2009

…about 9.4% of serving British forces personnel are women, 17,620 people, including
3,760 commissioned officers. The RAF has the highest proportion of roles open to
women of the three services, at 96%, followed by the Navy at 71% and the Army at 61%.
A BBC report from May this year suggests that as many as one in five of those currently
serving in Afghanistan are women, proportionately greater than their overall
representation in the military. Our own research has revealed that the RAF has 58
qualified female pilots, some 12 of whom are qualified to fly Fast Jets, out of a total of
148 female aircrew. Still a small proportion of the final tally (720 qualified Fast Jet
pilots, 1989 qualified Pilots, based on data from April this year), it shows that women are
making inroads into the RAF's most prestigious front-line roles. 229

On January 23, 2013, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that he would authorize

the use of women in combat in the US military. The US policy on women in combat detailed in

the 1994 Direct Ground Combat Definition and Assignment Rule bans servicewomen from units

whose primary mission is direct ground combat. According to recent data from the Pentagon,

“active-duty female personnel make up some 15 percent -- more than 280,000 members -- of the

more than 1.4 million troops in the U.S. Armed Forces. As of May 2012, just over 19% of the

1.2 million positions available in the military were open to women.” Although women already

serve in combat, the armed forces and the government do not officially recognize this. The

228
Ibid., xviii.
229
David Hoghton-Carter, “Ma’am, Yes Ma’am! - Women in the Military - Defence Viewpoints from UK Defence
Forum,” UK Defence Forum, August 24, 2009, http://www.defenceviewpoints.co.uk/articles-and-analysis/maam-
yes-maam-women-in-the-military.
 84

effects of which limits women's professional advancement or access to benefits male soldiers are

eligible to receive. 230

The social expectations placed on women changed drastically as the threat of WWII

increased in both Great Britain and the United States. The increased need for men on the

frontlines propelled women into civil and military positions where they had previously been

forbidden. Many women embraced the new freedom they experienced and continued to work

outside the home once the war was over. Despite the discrimination and harassment they

received from men at the time, women understood that their work “was some form of proof that

women could do these sorts of jobs, more or less successfully,” and felt that “it was quite a

normal step forward for women.” 231 These initial “steps forward” paved the way for future

generations of women in the military. While the progress was slow, it was steady.

Agencies like the SOE (disbanded in 1946) and OSS (disbanded in 1945 by Executive

Order and its responsibilities distributed to various agencies) still exist and employ women at all

levels. Both agencies acknowledge the use of women today, a stark contrast to the WWII era

procedure. A select few women have even reached the higher ranks, as Nora Slatkin did in 1995

when she became Executive Director of the CIA. Stella Rimington, became the first female

Director General of the British civilian intelligence agency MI5 in 1992. 232 It took these nations

decades to make this progress; perhaps in another 50 years, these women will see greater

equality in their pay and in how their male coworkers, who might still believe to some extent that

the military is “man’s work,” treat them.

230
“Women In Combat: Leon Panetta Removes Military Ban, Opening Front-Line Positions,” Huffington Post,
January 23, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/23/women-in-combat_n_2535954.html.
231
Juliette Pattinson, “Secret Agent,” HerStoria Magazine, Winter 2009, 13. This is a quote from an SOE agent
Yvonne Baseden in an interview with the author.
232
McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies, 255; “Former MI5 Leader Rimington to Discuss US-British
Intelligence Relations,” The Chautauquan Daily, accessed December 20, 2012,
http://chqdaily.com/2011/07/12/former-mi5-leader-rimington-to-discuss-us-british-intelligence-relations/.
 85

CONCLUSION

The decision to use women in the workforce, in order to replace men who were needed

on the battlefield, was much simpler to make than the one to replace men in the armed forces

with women. As the threat of war loomed over Great Britain and the United States in the early

1940s, both nations found themselves in dire need of personnel to fill essential positions in both

civil and military industries. These needs resulted in the metaphorical doors to the workforce

being thrown open for many women who had never sought employment outside of their homes.

As more women entered the workforce out of necessity, they faced challenges that many had not

expected, like sexual discrimination and the reality that they now had two full time

occupations—that of employee and of homemaker.

Along with the new responsibilities women faced in the 1940s, many of them took

advantage of the new-found freedoms that accompanied working outside of their homes.

Women were making their own money and often became the sole providers for their households.

This allowed them to make many of the financial decisions that their fathers or husbands had

been responsible for before the war. Societal standards were changing rapidly and what had

once been acceptable only for men, was now the responsibility of the women they left behind—

whether or not the women were ready or even wanted those responsibilities. However, for the

women who embraced their new opportunities, the governments in both nations offered them a

chance to experience many things that, prior to the war, would have been unimaginable for most

of them. Work became available in factories, offices, retail outlets, and in the military; all jobs

once held exclusively by men. Many women who entered the military traveled abroad and
 86

obtained positions that required their intelligence, quick thinking and an incredible amount of

bravery.

With the onset of the war, it quickly became clear to government officials that a variety

of tactics – including innovative intelligence operations – would be needed to win the war. The

need for specialized forces that could perform subversive duties under a shroud of secrecy

became obvious as they realized this was not a typical war. Great Britain and the United States

developed agencies that regularly practiced sabotage and other acts of espionage against the

enemy. The SOE and the OSS began as paramilitary organizations that would serve their nation

in ways that traditional military forces could not. Both organizations facilitated the defeat of

Hitler and his Nazi regime by employing men and women as secret agents behind enemy lines in

German occupied European countries. Those men and women performed missions that directly

placed them in danger of being captured, tortured, or killed by the Germans. Therefore, the

training they received needed to be extensive and thorough and left little time for discriminating

against potential agents based on their gender.

The previous chapters addressed the histories of women prior to WWII and at the point in

which they entered the workforce. The chapters also discuss, specifically, nine female agents

chosen not only because their accomplishments set them apart from all other agents, but also

because the histories that exist about them (and in the case of Elizabeth McIntosh, written by

her) are particularly focused on the sexuality and physical appearances of these women. This

study presented information about the women in the SOE and the OSS much like many

historians and authors have offered over the previous four decades. The difference between what

is presented in the preceding chapters and that of published works about female agents is that this

study excludes reference to the beauty or sexuality of the women unless these qualities were
 87

directly relevant to the success of specific missions. By contrast, the bulk of the existing

historiography written about both agencies repeatedly referenced either how female agents used

their sexuality or, at the very least, how attractive the women were.

One may wonder why it is significant to address the issue that books authored about

women during the 1940s focused on sexuality. Even if the information is accurate,

sensationalizing the presentation of female agents continues their objectification and reinforces

the mainstream standards of physical attractiveness. This study suggests that the answer is two-

fold. First, the results of this rhetorical approach diminish the agency of the women along with

the value of the work they did for their respective organizations because they were over-

sexualized. Secondly, the women became victims of discrimination from all members of society.

For example, the acronyms FANY, WAVES, and WAAC (the agencies that employed women in

auxiliary units of the armed forces) quickly became victim to word play by those who opposed

women in the military. The play on words used for the FANYs made reference to their body

parts. The term “fanny” dates back to 1879 in Great Britain where it meant “vulva” and is still

seen as offensive today. 233 In the United States, when the WAVES and the WAAC began

recruiting women, the public started to spread rumors about the promiscuity of the women who

joined. According to Gruhzit-Hoyt’s They Also Served, men would joke that they “joined the

navy to ride the WAVES,” and there were endless accounts of harassment in the official US

Army history of the WACs. 234 The WAAC and WAC women, like those of the FANYs, were

confronted with the obvious “wacky” references, insinuating that the women were “not right in

the head,” as soon as the branches began accepting women. The discrimination women faced,

which was also propagated in the historiography, insinuated that they were “easy” or “crazy.”

233
“The Definition of Fanny,” Dictionary.com, accessed January 23, 2013,
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fanny?s=ts.
234
Olga Gruhzit-Hoyt, They Also Served: American Women in World War II, 1st Edition (Birch Lane Pr, 1995), xvi.
 88

The results fostered the idea that women were incapable of performing the duties of their

positions or, worse yet, that their duties were sexual in nature.

The discrimination that women faced during the 1940s in the workforce has not been

addressed as thoroughly in this study as it may need to be because the foremost argument of this

work is that the existing historiography oversexualized and diminished the value of the efforts

and successes of the female agents of the SOE and the OSS. Additionally, this thesis argues that

the historiography discards the agency of the individual women agents by suggesting that they

either used their sexuality as a tool against men or by leading the reader to believe that the only

explanation for why these women were able to accomplish their missions was because they were

attractive. Were these women successful because they were beautiful or were they intelligent

enough to know when and how to use every tool in their arsenal in order to complete their

missions successfully? This composition contends it was the latter.

Marcus Binney suggested that women agents used their “feminine charms” in order to

escape from certain situations. Women, he says, would distract men by flirting or “making a

date” with them or by offering them good like fresh fruits. 235 Mary Lovell, in Cast No Shadow,

described Amy Thorpe Pack as an agent who sought out men in power and “us[ed] all her skills,

including sex, to extract [information from them].” She qualified this by stating that “to a certain

extent [Pack] regarded her work in the bedroom as mere expediency.” 236 Even Pack’s former

go-between said “she could only get information one way; she used it and got the information”

implying she had to use sex or would not have been useful to the Allies. 237 Because Pack was

not ashamed of her techniques, she is often written about as if she was a “femme fatale; very

235
Marcus Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger: The Women Agents of S.O.E. in the Second World War
(Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2002), 6.
236
Mary Lovell, Cast No Shadow: The Life of the American Spy Who Changed the Course of World War II, 1st ed.
(Pantheon, 1992), xiv.
237
Ibid., 142.
 89

sweet; a nymphomaniac; a romantic; extremely beautiful; rather ordinary; electrifying; and

highly intelligent.” 238 Of these characteristics used to describe Pack and the other women

agents, it was their sexuality that received the most attention.

While it is true that these women used their sexuality at times, by choosing when to

employ their sexuality, the women demonstrated their intelligence and a keen perception of other

people and of the situations they found themselves in. The authors exploited the women’s

agency when they suggested that the women used their sexuality indiscriminately and as a first

line of defense against their enemies. Never was it suggested by the authors that men were easily

persuaded, of weaker moral character, or that male agents ever attempted to seduce women in

order to obtain needed information. The authors portrayed women as predators and men as

victims when it suited, however they would then use verbiage that suggested the women were

somehow less noteworthy than their male counterparts throughout the rest of their monographs.

The authors’ analysis of female agents was often constrained by their own proclivity toward the

stereotypes about women and their positions in society during WWII.

Chapters 2 and 3 focused on reiterating the histories of a select few women agents of the

SOE and the OSS without regard for their physical beauty. Both chapters also served to draw

attention to their contrast with the published works that are available about the SOE and the OSS

and the women who worked for them. The present chapter offers a deeper investigation into the

notion, and offers evidence, that the women were subjected to socially constructed gender roles

in the 1940s and that those roles continued to influence the authors writing about them decades

later. In 1945, for example, Squadron Leader Simpson was quoted in the Sunday Express that

“the interesting thing about these girls is that they are not hearty and horsey young women with

masculine chins. They are pretty young girls who would look demure and sweet in crinolines,”
238
Ibid., xiv–xv.
 90

suggesting that women, or at least attractive women, were performing unladylike duties for the

SOE. 239 While a certain amount of historicism is necessary when writing about WWII as well as

other areas of history, the monographs in question use language outside the context of a

timeframe and as a tool to describe women for their audience. To reiterate, the majority of the

historiography on women in the SOE and OSS has been published within the last thirty years, yet

they still use language that was commonplace in the 1940s when referencing women. Their

works are laden with sexual references about women; however, the need to extend the same

courtesy to the readers regarding the male characters does not apply.

A researcher attempting to compile a list of sources about the women who served in the

SOE or the OSS will find it difficult to obtain many sources published by academic presses

which have come to be heavily relied upon for accurate and thorough information by historians.

Most of the existing literature on these women is published by commercial publishing houses

whose standards can be less scholarly. The effect this has for the researcher is that their findings

are unfortunately weighted with sensationalism, overexaggeration, and inaccuracy as well as a

free-flowing use of lurid adjectives designed to draw the reader in by creating a visually pleasing

mental image. This becomes particularly problematic when discussing the women of the SOE

and OSS because those “mental images” foster a continued gender bias that labels the women as

either weak, motherly, or as harlots. This researcher is not suggesting that the featured women

were unfeminine or unattractive by conventional standards for the time. However, referring back

to Chapters 2 and 3, in most instances, how a woman looked had little to do with transferring

data to London, coordinating airdrops of supplies, blowing up bridges, or distributing

propaganda to enemy soldiers. It would seem that men, no matter what they looked like, would

have been used for the exact same jobs if they were not off fighting on the frontline.
239
Binney, The Women Who Lived for Danger, 6.
 91

Once the evidence has been presented suggesting the authors oversexualized their

representation of the women, two questions surface 1) why is this an issue if the end product

informs the reader of all relevant information; and 2) why do the authors use such language when

describing the women? The first question was addressed more thoroughly in the chapter on the

SOE, but the diminishing of the agents’ successes because they are overshadowed by the implied

feminization of them is again worthy of reiteration. The answer to the second question was also

partially answered in the same chapter with the advertising cliché that “sex sells.” When writing

any work, the authors must keep their audience in mind, and since popular presses publish most

of the literature about these women, the general public is the target. Their target audience has

come to expect certain things from books they read. Suspense, intrigue, excitement and sex are

just a few of the covered topics in books topping the New York Times Best Sellers List. 240

Therefore, when analyzing the content of these books, a certain level of “entertainment” is

acceptable. However, writing entertaining prose does not exclude the authors from presenting

the facts accurately, nor does it absolve them of the responsibility to present neutral

representations of both men and women in their works.

A commonality exists between biographies, autobiographies, general histories and

military histories of the women involved with the SOE and the OSS that positions women as

overly sexual beings who must use their femininity and their bodies to persuade, distract or

manipulate men (usually German soldiers) into allowing them to pass through checkpoints or

accommodate the women in any other way. This representation of women as licentious or

sexually conniving has a long history in the Western tradition and has thusly become part of the

dominant or conventional social construction of how women are viewed and often times how

240
Information based on New York Times Online “Best Sellers List - Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction” Week
of January 13-January 27, 2013.
 92

they act. 241 Female agents, regardless of how they viewed themselves, needed to blend in with

the local population and in doing so, had to act and dress their “part” in order to remain

undetected by the German soldiers or Nazi sympathizers. This need to conform to the “norms”

of their surroundings is described by Judith Butler as “performativity,” and better explained by

Joan Tumblety, as the use of what society accepted as “feminine” and employing those

characteristics to hide the true nature of their work, which society views as “masculine.” 242 The

female agents’ decisions to flirt or act “helpless” directly reflected their abilities to survey a

given situation and determine their best course of action. Intelligence, not beauty, was their

greatest weapon in the field. For example, women in the field took on many personas depending

on their circumstances. If they were placed in high society circles as Pack and Granville were,

seduction was often a tool used to obtain information from men who perhaps had a susceptibility

to persuasion or seduction and held vital information needed by the SOE and OSS. However,

those same techniques may not have worked for women like Hill, Szabo, or Wake who were

running messages between Maquis groups across France. Obviously, evening gowns and make-

up would have drawn the wrong kind of attention to these women.

While the socially accepted notion of “femininity” was certainly present in the everyday

lives of these women, they were able to perform their clandestine duties “concealed under a

mask of locally and historically specific femininity,” as Juliette Pattinson explains in her essay

on the women of the SOE. 243 How women were viewed by society was well established. The

women agents knew they needed to work within these social constraints; however, they were

241
For information on women who are depicted as temptresses see: Lovell, Cast No Shadow; Madeleine Masson,
Christine: SOE Agent and Churchill’s Favourite Spy: A Search for Christine Granville, New Ed (Virago, 2005);
Clare Mulley, The Spy Who Loved: The Secrets and Lives of Christine Granville, Britain’s First Female Special
Agent of the Second World War (London: Macmillan, 2012).
242
Juliette Pattinson, “The Best Disguise: Performing Femininities for Clandestine Purposes During the Second
World War,” in Gender and Warfare in the Twentieth Century: Textual Representations, ed. Angela K. Smith
(Manchester University Press, 2004), 132–34.
243
Ibid., 137.
 93

also expected to perform tasks that required the strength of men. Nancy Wake, Virginia Hall,

Maria Gulovich, and Viollette Szabo’s stories offer examples of how women acted in the most

“unfeminine” ways while in the field, yet the authors who wrote about them still overly

sexualized them. These authors’ works unnecessarily characterized the agents’ duties as

masculine or feminine, thus continuing the gendered representation of the agents as they had

been conventionally defined in the 1940s. Labeling duties based on gender was yet another way

the authors advanced the notion of keeping women in subservient roles to men several decades

later.

In her essay, “Turning a Pretty Girl into a Killer,” Pattinson argues that the socially

constructed ideas of femininity suggest that women cannot be killers. Society wants to depict

women as weak and fragile beings who are responsible for giving life and therefore would not,

or could not, take a life no matter what the circumstances. War, according to this gendered

paradigm, is masculine in its very nature, and women just do not possess the ability to do what it

takes to win in battle. 244 Male aggression, however, was encouraged by the socially accepted

correlation of guns and masculinity and continued to bolster the idea that women did not belong

on the frontlines of battle. The SOE and the OSS ultimately threw out these notions by training

women for combat and weapons usage. Once trained, women were placed in the field among

other male agents and male resistances fighters where they had to work harder to gain acceptance

and respect. Even after female agents had obtained some respect from the men, they were still

not seen as equals. No matter how accomplished these women became in the field, the

prevailing social ideas of a woman remained on some level. Nancy Wake was described by one

of the men she worked with as “the most feminine women [he had] ever met in [his] life, but in

244
Juliette Pattinson, “Turning a Pretty Girl into a Killer: Women, Violence and Clandestine Operations During the
Second World War,” in Gender and Interpersonal Violence: Language, Action and Representation, ed. Karen
Throsby and Flora Alexander (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 11.
 94

battle she’s worth ten men,” suggesting that Wake’s abilities were extraordinary because she was

a woman. 245 It would seem that, according to society, women could not be both strong and

beautiful but Wake and the other women proved otherwise. They used weapons and killed many

enemy soldiers as well as destroyed bridges and railways to limit German advancement,

transportation and supplies. So, the question remains: why do the authors of books on females in

the SOE and the OSS continue to draw attention to their attractiveness and sexuality?

The authors, especially those who have published works within the last twenty-five years,

must be aware, at least on some level, that their characterization of female agents is driven by the

social construction of femininity and masculinity that has embedded itself into their own ideas of

these women. They must also be aware, since the feminist movement began many years before

their books were published and drew attention to how women have been represented in history,

that referencing the appearance and sexuality of female agents detracts from the intellectual

abilities and the bravery of these women, as those are socially constructed traits that are usually

attributed to men. To use adjectives such as “vivacious,” “beautiful,” or “glamour girls” to

describe the women agents creates a distraction for the reader because the focus is taken away

from the activities being performed by the women and places it on their pretty faces, what they

were wearing or with whom they were intimately involved. What purpose does it serve the

reader to know that an agent was “five feet seven…slender, with high cheekbones, and a warm

smile,” if only to follow the description with “that belied her toughness and leadership

abilities”? 246 Was it only possible to be tough and a fine leader if the person was short, stocky,

and gruff? This is exactly what the existing historiography suggests with the way women are

handled in their texts. By playing on the cultural assumptions held by their readers—that a petite

245
Ibid., 24.
246
Elizabeth P. McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies: The Women of the Oss, Reprint (Naval Institute Press, 2009), 114.
 95

and pretty girl could not be tough secret agents—the authors were suggesting a contrast existed

between the appearances and the abilities of the female agents. Using such literary strategies, the

authors force their readers into complicity with their discourse, again subjugating the women.

If consideration is given to the possibility that the authors are unaware that their portrayal

of these women is socially constructed, or if it is argued that contemporary rhetoric accounts for

the language they use, it begs the question of why do they not attribute the same type of

descriptive language when discussing male agents or authority figures? This researcher found

only one source, the biography on Amy Thorpe Pack, which applied equal treatment of its

characters. In Cast No Shadow, both Pack and the men she became involved with were

described with sexualized adjectives like “handsome,” “dazzling,” “elegant,” and “good-

looking.” All other sources stay within the constraints of social convention and, at best, mention

height, weight or age when introducing a new male character. By contrast, when introducing

new females, how attractive she was, what she was wearing, or some other beauty identifier is

always present. A particularly interesting similarity can be found in the works written by both

male and female authors.

Elizabeth McIntosh, for example, both worked for the OSS and authored several works

about the subject of women in the organization, and her descriptions of male and female agents

serve as evidence that more attention is placed on the female agents’ appearance, sexuality and

romantic lives than on the male agents. In Sisterhood of Spies, McIntosh repeatedly uses words

like “vivacious,” “sensuous,” and “debonair,” to describe the agents of the OSS. Throughout

the book, there are few places where these adjectives add to the recounting of the female agents’

missions abroad. The fact that women authors focused on sexuality and beauty just as often as

the male authors suggests that this is not a “male chauvinist” act. Instead, it supports the
 96

argument that oversexualizing women comes from being socially constructed to label women as

weaker, sex-crazed, and not intelligent enough to be successful without using their bodies to

seduce the men around them. Socially constructed ideas instilled in the authors’ subconscious do

not excuse the women writers from perpetuating the stereotypes that the agents had to be sexy to

be successful. The attractiveness of these women had as much to do with their self-confidence

and self-assuredness as it did with the conventional definitions of beauty. Men being “drawn to”

these women went beyond the superficial level, and many men grew to admire the women’s

personal strength and bravery.

Women, whether working as secretaries or secret agents, faced discrimination from their

male and female peers when they entered the workforce at the beginning of the Second World

War. The histories written about these women offer insights into the experiences they had

working in factories and the military in the 1940s. For some women, those who were part of the

secret organizations of the SOE and the OSS, the challenges they faced were much more

dangerous and required skills and bravery that many men did not possess. The existing literature

that seeks to retell the stories of the women spies of the SOE and the OSS are informative, but

because of their focus on the sexuality and physical beauty of the agents, many of their

accomplishments of the female agents were overshadowed.

This study serves as a small collection of gender-neutral accounts of nine women who

served their nations and risked their lives for the cause of freedom. Its purpose is to draw

attention to the ways in which women are portrayed in history as overly sexual beings who were

unable to fulfill their duties without seducing as many men as they could along the way. It also

proposes that the way society dictates what is feminine or masculine has caused the authors to

continue writing about female spies as if their performance in the field was remarkable because
 97

they were women and not because they were remarkable agents. Many of the featured women

did use their sexuality while in the field, but they did so because they knew it was necessary for

the success of their mission and sometimes for their survival. The intellect and the bravery of the

women in the SOE and the OSS should be the focus of the literature, not how pretty they were by

conventional and superficial standards of beauty. Focusing on physical beauty detracts from

how significant the efforts of these women were to the war. Men were not subjected to the same

type of critiques by these authors. For men, it was assumed that war was second nature, but

women had just as much to lose during WWII and chose to join the fight.

It is this researcher’s hope that future histories of the women who belonged to the SOE

and the OSS will feature more stories about their missions and less about whom they shared their

beds with. Ideally, the authors will present histories that deconstruct the ideas of gender roles

and exclude constructed identities of feminine and masculine agents. The results would offer a

clear picture of the missions these agents were sent on and illustrate how effective the agents

were in the overall effort to prevent the Nazis from conquering Europe. This study could serve

as that first step toward a representation of female agents that excludes any reference to physical

beauty or the oversexualization of the women.

 98

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